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Plain-English guide

Every term we use, defined in one sentence.

UrbanCat reports are read by councillors, finance directors, planners and journalists — not just ecologists. This page exists so you never have to leave the platform to look up an acronym.

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Glossary · 38 terms

Term
Plain English
AAL
Average Annual Loss (AAL)
£/yr

The average £ damage you'd expect each year from a hazard like flooding or heatwaves, taking into account that big events are rare. Insurers use this as their base number.

Avoided cooling cost

The air-conditioning bill the surrounding buildings no longer have to pay because trees and reflective surfaces cool the area down. Reported as £/year saved.

Avoided stormwater cost

Money the water company and insurers don't have to spend on treating storm water or repairing flood damage, because the green infrastructure soaked it up first.

BCR
Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR)

How many £ of benefit the scheme delivers for every £ spent. A BCR of 2.0× means £2 of public benefit per £1 of cost.

BNG units
Biodiversity Net Gain units (BNG)

The UK's official scoring unit for nature improvement — every English development must deliver at least 10% more biodiversity than was on site before. We size projects to hit (or exceed) that target.

Capex
Capital expenditure (Capex)
£

The upfront money spent to design, build and install the scheme — distinct from the year-on-year running cost (opex).

CVaR
Climate Value-at-Risk (CVaR)
£

How much of the scheme's £ value could be wiped out by a worse-than-expected climate. We report it under both RCP4.5 (stated policy) and RCP8.5 (stress-test ceiling).

DBKL
Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL)

Kuala Lumpur City Hall — the municipal authority that approves planning, drainage and green-infrastructure works inside KL's federal territory.

DCF
Discounted Cash Flow (DCF)

The standard finance method of forecasting a project's annual income and costs and converting them to today's £. NPV and IRR both come out of this calculation.

ELR
Ecological Loss Ratio (ELR)

How much ecological value a project would destroy for every square metre it builds on, before adding any green replacement. Used alongside BNG so we can argue both the legal and ecological case.

EVI
Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI)

A second satellite greenness index that stays useful even in very dense planting where NDVI maxes out. We use both as a cross-check.

EAC
Equivalent Annual Cost (EAC)
£/yr

What the scheme costs each year on average, once you smooth the upfront build cost across its lifetime. Useful for comparing assets with different lifespans.

PM2.5
Fine particulate matter ≤2.5 µm (PM2.5)
µg/m³

The tiny soot particles from traffic and burning that get deep into people's lungs — the biggest air-pollution killer. Trees and hedges remove some of it from the air; we monetise the avoided NHS cost.

GAN super-resolution
Generative Adversarial Network super-resolution

An AI image-sharpener that turns 10-metre satellite pixels into something that looks crisp on an A3 client report. We use it only for visuals — the underlying numbers stay at native resolution.

HSG
Hydrologic Soil Group (HSG A–D)

Whether the local soil drains fast (A, sandy) or slow (D, heavy clay). It controls how much rainwater can soak in instead of running off.

IFRS S2
IFRS S2 — Climate-related Disclosures

The successor to TCFD — the international accounting rule that says companies must publish climate-risk numbers, not just words.

IMD decile
Index of Multiple Deprivation (England)

The official UK score for how deprived a neighbourhood is — 1 means it's in the most-deprived 10% of England, 10 means the least. We give projects in deprived areas extra weight, in line with HM Treasury rules.

ICVCM CCP
Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market — Core Carbon Principles

The independent rules for high-integrity carbon credits — covers additionality, permanence, double-counting and proper measurement. Our verification ledger maps every claim to one of these principles.

IRR
Internal Rate of Return (IRR)
%

The annual % return the project earns over its life — the higher the better. A 7% IRR means the scheme returns the same as a 7% interest rate.

LCOE
Levelised Cost of Outcome (LCOE)

The total lifetime cost divided by the total benefit delivered — e.g. £ per tonne of CO₂ removed, or £ per BNG unit. Lets buyers compare schemes apples-to-apples.

MRV
Monitoring, Reporting & Verification (MRV)

The three-step routine — measure it, report it, get it independently verified — that turns a green claim into a credit you can sell or a number a regulator accepts.

Monte Carlo (n=800)

We re-run every calculation 800 times, each time with slightly different assumptions, so the report shows a realistic range (low, mid, high) instead of a single false-precision number.

NPV
Net Present Value (NPV)
£

All future income and costs from the project added up, but with future £ worth less than today's £ (the standard way governments and investors compare schemes).

NO₂
Nitrogen dioxide (NO₂)
µg/m³

The brownish gas from diesel exhausts that inflames lungs and triggers asthma. Leafy buffers absorb some of it.

NDVI
Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)

A satellite measurement of how much living, healthy plant cover is on the ground, from −1 (water) to +1 (dense forest). We use it to prove a project actually delivered the greening it promised.

NSGA-II Pareto optimiser

An algorithm that searches thousands of possible scheme designs and shows you the trade-off curve — e.g. 'this design maxes biodiversity, this one maxes £-saved, this one balances both'.

PES
Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES)

Annual payments — usually from a water company, council or insurer — for the public benefits the scheme delivers (cleaner water, cooler streets, less flooding). Think of it as an income stream the project earns on top of any one-off sale.

QALY
Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY)

The standard health-economics unit: one year of life in perfect health = 1 QALY. UrbanCat values a QALY at £70,000 (HM Treasury Green Book 2022) when monetising avoided pollution and heat-stress mortality. NICE uses £20k–£30k for drug-approval decisions — a different context.

RCP4.5 / RCP8.5
Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP)

Two standard climate futures used by every major regulator: RCP4.5 is roughly the path we're on if countries hit their pledges; RCP8.5 is the worst-case if they don't. We test every project against both.

Sequestered carbon
Sequestered carbon (CO₂ removed from the air)
tCO₂e/yr

How many tonnes of CO₂ the planting pulls out of the air each year, valued at the official UK carbon price.

SuDS
Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS)

An umbrella term for green drainage features (swales, rain gardens, permeable paving, ponds) that slow and clean runoff instead of piping it straight to a sewer.

TCFD
Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)

The standard set of climate-risk questions that listed UK companies must answer in their annual report. Our climate stress test produces the §C.3 paragraph for them.

TNFD LEAP
Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures — LEAP framework

TCFD's nature-risk equivalent — a 4-step framework (Locate, Evaluate, Assess, Prepare) that tells companies how to disclose their dependencies and impacts on nature.

TCO
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
£

Everything the scheme costs over 20 years, not just the build price. Includes maintenance, replanting and any replacements.

UTCI
Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI)
°C

The temperature your body actually feels once you factor in humidity, wind and direct sun — not just what the thermometer says. We use it to show how much cooler a street feels after planting.

SCS-CN runoff
USDA SCS Curve Number runoff method (SCS-CN)
mm

The standard engineering recipe for working out how much rainwater runs off a piece of land in a storm. Greener surfaces hold more water — we calculate how much flooding and treatment cost is avoided.

WELLBY
Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year (WELLBY)

The official UK Treasury unit for putting a £ value on improved wellbeing — one extra point of life-satisfaction for one person for one year = 1 WELLBY (worth ≈ £13k in 2024 prices).

WELLBY social value
Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Year value (WELLBY)

The official UK Treasury way of putting a £ value on people feeling better — fewer sick days, better mental health — when they get access to green space.

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