Speakers

Nicola Melville is a Senior Scientist with  the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, specialising in sustainable management of natural capital though the development of new approaches and tools to support decision making.

She leads SEPA’s work to embed ecosystem services into decision making, working with a cross organisational team. The approach ensures that decisions take into account the effects on  essential benefits from the natural environment that people rely on  for their health and wellbeing, and the success of their businesses. She  developed in collaboration with Scottish  Hydroelectricity Transmission  a method to help linear infrastructure route selection. This project was funded in 2014/15 by Innovate UK.

Prior to SEPA she worked for the RSPB, Royal Holloway Institute for Environmental Research, South West Water and the National Power Corporation in the Philippines. She is an experienced manager who turns environmental policy into successful programmes and campaigns. She leads multi-functional teams, partnerships and individuals with the objective of making a real difference for nature and the environment. She has worked on different aspects of natural capital and the ecosystem services through her career. This includes assessing and targeting action to manage soil erosion at a catchment level; functional assessment of the role of wetlands; role of wetland restoration in sustainable water resource management; assessing the potential to use wetland products to  fund creation and restoration of wetlands; investigating potential for payment for ecosystem services at an area level between providers and users in the Lake District.