Combining Socio-Economic and Environmental Data for Rural Areas

Project Status: Completed (See Final Report Summary)
Type of Project: Scoping Study
Principal Investigator: Dr Meg Huby, University of York (Email)
Website

Publications, Data and Other Outputs

Objectives

This study aims to work towards the production of a spatial typology of rural areas that takes account of both the natural and the socio-economic environment. The rationale is that rural areas are highly diverse in terms of their ecology and in their socio-economic characteristics and it is the interaction of social, economic and environmental conditions that governs land use patterns and the potential for sustainable development.

We plan to use the Super Output Areas (SOA) of the 2001 Census as our spatial building blocks and will use the ONS 2004 definitions of rurality. Socio-economic aspects of rural conditions will be captured using information about demographic patterns, housing, economic activity, travel, dimensions of area deprivation, public health and neighbourhood characteristics. To these will be added environmental data on current land use, protected areas, biodiversity and sources, and levels of pollution of air, water and soils. Spatial analysis will be used to indicate the positions of rural communities in relation to environmental goods and ‘bads’ and to develop measures of access to services such as GP surgeries, shops, schools, post offices and hospitals.

The proposed study is wholly reliant on an interdisciplinary approach. The very nature of its objective demands an interdisciplinary conceptualisation of rural areas, not solely as landscapes and habitats, nor simply as places where people live and work, nor just as an economic resource. It also presents some tricky methodological challenges. Environmental and socio-economic data are collected by different methods and at different levels of resolution. One of our first tasks is to derive methods for mapping gridded environmental data on to areas that are designed for the analysis of social characteristics.

This is not proving easy. The scrutiny of socio-economic data by environmental experts and of environmental data by social scientists raises questions about what exactly is being measured and what the data are revealing. It highlights differences in underlying philosophies of the natural and social sciences and demands that each researcher learns the language and methods of other disciplines. Our first working paper is about the trials and tribulations of interdisciplinary research.

There is a plethora of data already in existence. We are liaising with the DEFRA Rural Research and Analysis Unit and the RDS Geographical Information Unit both of which are working on production of a rural evidence hub. The Department of Transport is also working on measures of accessibility to services in rural areas and is producing a separate data repository. One of our early tasks is to use the literature to identify key issues in rural development to guide the selection of data for inclusion in the RELU study. At the same time we are exploring issues of data availability and access, working closely with two other RELU teams:

• Data resources for rural sustainability research: realising their combined potential (Scoping study – Nigel Boatman, CSL)

• Integrating spatial data on the rural economy, land use and biodiversity (Development activity– Piran White, Environment Department, University of York)
A crucial test of the success of the study will be its usefulness as a basis for typology construction, providing a unique sampling frame for the selection of appropriate sample areas in further research. The outputs from the study could also inform rural policy-making by aiding understanding of the range and diversity of needs for intervention. This in turn would enable a more tailored approach to be taken to resource allocation for environmental protection, social development and well-being, and the maintenance or improvement of rural economies.

Meg Huby meh1@york.ac.uk
Steve Cinderby sc9@york.ac.uk
Anne Owen ao502@york.ac.uk

SPSW and SEIY, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD