Example environmental science dissertation topic 3:

Increasing neighbourhood bio-diversity as a measure against surface water flooding.

With the seemingly ever-increasing threat of surface water flooding this dissertation calls for an alliance between householders, environmental scientists and planners, to combat the problem. In so doing it argues that by legislatively requiring householders to no more than 1/10th of their outside space covered by non-porous materials and by further encouraging them to plant variegated borders, the threat of surface water flooding could be reduced. Mindful that such an approach on the behalf of local authorities would represent a major ‘step change’ in support of environmentalism, this dissertation surveys present home-owners in the Wirral Peninsula and in so doing measures their response to such proposals before and after they have received targeted publicity specifically addressing the dangers of surface water flooding and the need, as a precautionary measure, to increase soakaways in residential areas. This is, accordingly, a dissertation that combines grounded academic opinion with practical political realities as well as the collection and interpretation of new primary data strands.

Suggested initial topic reading:

• Dixon, A., Butler, D. and Fewkes, A. (1999). ‘Water saving potential of domestic water reuse systems using greywater and rainwater in combination’, Water Science and Technology, Vol. 39(5), pp. 25-32.
• Oberndorfer, E., Lundholm, J., Bass, B., Coffman, R.R., Doshi, H., Dunnett, N., Gaffin, S., Köhler, M., Liu, K.K.Y. and Rowe, B. (2007).
• ‘Green roofs as urban ecosystems: Ecological structures, functions, and services’, BioScience, Vol. 57(10).
• Wilby, R.L. (2007). ‘A review of climate change impacts on the built environment’, Built Environment, Vol. 33(1), pp. 31-45.