I am interested in the broad area of human-environment-climate change interactions, including the impacts and risks of climate change, particularly on human health. I am also interested in the research of climate services to improve thier effectiveness and usefulness.
Academic history: I had MSc in Carbon Management at the University of Edinburgh. Before that, I had BSc in Natural Resource and Environmental Science at Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University, China.
Career: I was a research assistant at the University of Edinburgh for two projects on climate services funded by the UK Met Office, one focusing on air quality and one focusing on multi-model. I am a tutor for several courses at the University of Edinburgh, including Fundamentals of Research Design, Research Design and Implementation, Climate Change Management.
My PhD project investigates the temperature-related mortality in Scotland’s changing climate in terms of its science and policy landscape. The project is explored through three questions— 1) How prepared is the Scottish policy context for temperature-related mortality risks under climate change? It is studied through interviewing stakeholders and analysing published journal articles and policy documents. 2) How does ambient temperature affect the mortality rate in Scotland over the last 45 years and how it varies by demographic and socioeconomic factors? This is studied through a time series analysis with distributed lag models which takes into account the lagged effect of temperature on mortality. 3) How will the mortality burden attributable to high and low temperatures change in the future considering climate change and changes in demography and vulnerability? The mortality burdens are projected using UK climate change projections data, population projections under UK Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs), and the temperature-mortality relationships. The mortality risk due to high and low temperatures obtained from the analysis of the data in the past 45 years (question 2) will be used as a basis to inform the risk in the future. The risk in the future will also be projected under adaptation scenarios in alignment with UK SSPs, which are co-constructed through a stakeholder workshop.
Wan, K., Shackley, S., Doherty, R. M., et al. (2020) Science-policy interplay on air pollution governance in China. Environmental Science and Policy, 107, 150-157.
Wan, K., Shackley, S., Doherty, R.M., et al (2021) Air quality services on climate time-scales for decision making: An empirical study of China. Journal of Cleaner Production, 127651.
