Meeting report : NERC Integrated Environmental Modelling Workshop : held at the British Geological Survey, Keyworth, 4-5th February

This report describes the results of the NERC Integrated Environmental Modelling (IEM) workshop that was held at BGS Keyworth on the 4th to 5th February, 2014. The meeting brought together some 35 scientists from the NERC Science Office and five NERC centres and surveys. The workshop builds on previous meetings which have been convened over a number of years; such as the International summit on Integrated Environmental Modelling, Washington (2010), the AGU fall meeting, San Francisco (2009), and the international congress on Environmental Modelling and Software (2010). From these meetings it was recognised that there were many communities involved in developing IEM and that the two main groups of the US and Europe needed to work together to create an open community for all. Out of these meetings it was clear that there was a need to; provide accessible linkable components, to address uncertainty, to professionalise the development of integrated models, to engage with the user community (particularly decision and policy-makers) and to develop a community of practise to aid the development and uptake of IEM. The aim of this meeting was to:  Develop a strategy for Integrated Environmental Modelling (IEM) within NERC  Develop an Integrated Environmental Modelling Methodology that can be easily adopted both inside and outside NERC  Establish several exemplar projects that are cross-cutting (institutional and discipline) and also deliver the key goals of IEM and the new NERC strategy The outcomes from the Washington meeting in 2010 have been considered and further developed. From this, the proposed NERC IEM strategy has been broken down into 4 key areas which formed the topics for each of the breakout groups and are: - 1. The premise that eventually all models will at some point in their life-cycle need to be linked to other models. What needs to be done to enable this to happen? 2. To encourage the development of modelling platforms. What needs to be done to enable this to happen? 3. To assess and quantify uncertainty arising from integrated modelling. What needs to be done to enable this to happen? 4. To develop specific exemplar projects. How should this be done within NERC and with NERC's partners? The report outlines the strategy and vision for Integrated Environmental Modelling in NERC and then gives a description of the main findings from each of the 4 main topics areas addressed within the NERC IEM workshop