Impact
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Impact case 1:
Our paper by Moustakas and Evans ‘Coupling models of cattle and farms with models of badgers for predicting the dynamics of bovine tuberculosis (TB)’ received substantial media attention including the BBC ‘Testing 'more effective' than badger cull’’, the Guardian ‘Testing cattle better than culling badgers to control bovine TB, study suggests’, and several other national and international media.
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-30820579
The model conceived and coded by myself uses computationally intensive agent-based simulation modelling and was parameterised with state of the art computational statistics on a scale-specific grid. Model outputs were validated against known patterns. The sufficient parameter simulation space was also determined. The main conclusion of the model was that cattle testing is more effective than badger culling and that winter housing increases TB prevalence in cattle.
A second paper also by Moustakas and Evans performing time series decomposition of publicly available health data (data from DEFRA) on TB in cattle ‘Regional and temporal characteristics of Bovine Tuberculosis of cattle in Great Britain’ fully confirms the theoretically-derived findings of the previous paper: regions in GB that have adopted at least annual or more frequent cattle testing exhibit lower TB incidence and prevalence than other GB regions. The paper was also extensively covered by the media including the Guardian ‘Frequent TB testing for cattle 'more effective' than badger culls’ as well as well as BBC Countrylife, The Ecologist, Farming UK and other media.
We were invited to brief the British Parliament on the 20th October 2015 regarding our findings (Invited talk - Joint presentation Evans & Moustakas). The presentation was attended by several MPs, as well as industrial stakeholders.
Following up our Parliament briefing, 40 MPs have submitted a Freedom of Information Act to the Parliament, as it turned out that a longer time series regarding TB incidence and prevalence in cattle in GB existed but the data were not made publicly available. These data are now available via DEFRA’s website.
Our paper ‘A big-data spatial, temporal and network analysis of Bovine Tuberculosis between wildlife (badgers) and cattle’ was also extensive covered by the media including BBC4 Farming today and the Vet times. This study pioneers simulation modelling (agent based modelling) and spatial & temporal statistics to investigate the temporal cycles and spatial aggregation of the disease between and within each species. The main findings of the paper showed that the degree of spatial aggregation of TB in badgers is different than the one in cattle and that the spatial cross-correlation between them is significant across very few scales. The temporal cycles are also different between the two species.
Using a larger open access publicly available dataset and applying wavelets, network analysis, spatio-temporal statistics, and agent-based simulation modelling followed by Bayesian inference we published in May 2018 a paper in Nature Communications ‘ Abrupt events and population synchrony in the dynamics of Bovine Tuberculosis’ Vol. 9, Article number: 2821 (2018). This study examines how rare abrupt events such as TB cattle testing interruption due to the foot-and-mouth epidemic in 2001 in GB impact on diseases. Testing interruption shifted the dynamics from annual to four-year cycles, and created long-lasting shifts in the spatial synchrony of new infections among regions of GB. After annual testing was introduced in some GB regions, new infections have become more de-synchronised, a result also confirmed by a stochastic model.
The Nature Communications paper was also transformed into an animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64U_wtkDeHs
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Impact case 2:
Our work on Wind Energy Spatial Planning & Assessment (Paper title: “The biodiversity-wind energy-land use nexus in a global biodiversity hotspot”) proposed a method for the spatial planning of wind turbines throughout Greece that accounts for biodiversity and landscape fragmentation impacts and compromises only 4% in terms of wind energy efficiency in the country. In specific the method suggested that the spatial planning should aim to maximize wind turbines at non-protected highly fragmented habitats. The results were cross-validated with wind data of the new locations at the height of wind turbines as well as o the biodiversity present at the new locations.
The paper received substantial media attention and the implications and findings were also discussed in the Greek Parliament on 25.01.2021:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G020wg6IEBA
Following up Parliamentary discussions and public consultation the Greek government decided on 18.01.2022 to introduce a network of ‘Untrodden Mountains’ (Απάτητα βουνά) where wind turbines are not permitted and all previously issued permissions were cancelled. Wind turbines can be located at fragmented areas of lower altitude.
https://news.gtp.gr/2022/01/19/greece-places-6-mountain-habitats-on-high-protection/
https://www.kathimerini.gr/society/561675295/to-diktyo-ton-apatiton-voynon-oi-protes-exi-perioches/