Catchment Change Network.net

The Government Water White Paper is now available. describes a vision for future water management in which the water sector is resilient, in which water companies are more efficient and customer focused, and in which water is valued as the precious and finite resource it is. It also explains that we all have a part to play in the realisation of this vision.

See Defra press notice Spelman: Water reform needed to tackle threat of future droughts

In addition to this Ofwat has published it’s . These two documents provide the backdrop to the way decision making and planning will be framed over the next few years. Scoropanos said that number is based just on colleges that have informed the college board, and that the total number best essay assistance of institutions requiring the writing test could be much larger

This conference at the Geological Society in London (28/29^th November 2011) was primarily driven by the British Geological Survey, in part to present the BGS vision of integrated modelling, including a new scoping study on Data and Research for Environmental Applications and Models (DREAM).  Dennis Peach, Chief Scientist at BGS, opened the conference with a talk on the BGS Vision of the future.  Being BGS of course, their vision was based on new methods for presenting geological structures.  Other visions were also presented including the Open Platform being developed by the Met Office, the NERC funded Environment Virtual Observatory project, and the Community Surface Dynamics Modelling System (CSDMS) from the USA.  Naturally there was much discussion about the need for standards in exchanging data and model outputs, including OpenMI.  There was a recognition that model fusion / integrated environmental modelling was still in its early stages, but an analogy was drawn with the progress that had been made from the early days of aviation to the current range of sophisticated aircraft, though whether the military and public perceive an equivalent need for integrated environmental modelling is a moot point.  This was revealed by the need for a “killer app” to really drive funding and development being mentioned several times.

Interaction of stakeholders and users with such integrated models was also the subject of some discussion, as it has been in the CCN project.  Uncertainty and risk are important components of this interaction, and in my talk I suggested that the type of Guidelines or Decision Tree Framework used in CCN might be a useful way forward here, facilitating decisions about assumptions and communication of meaning. 

One interesting question that was raised in response was when would a consideration of uncertainty make a difference to the decision that was made.   There are academic responses to this (when the risk function is highly nonlinear etc) but I think that misses the point.  Evaluating uncertainty and risk is about being more scientifically honest and about understanding the role of risk in the process of prioritising spending in being more or less risk accepting.  The decision maker might then choose to make the same “deterministic” decision but should at least be much more aware of what the significance of that might be in relation to how well the science can characterise the system.

This event is organised jointly by the Modern Built Environment and Environmental Sustainability Knowledge Transfer Networks (KTN), the British Geological Survey (BGS) and CIRIA. It will provide a platform for high profile speakers, whilst allowing delegates to contribute to discussions via two breakout sessions on the challenges that lie ahead and the solutions that have already been realised. Leaping into Sustainable Drainage Systems will run on Wednesday, February 29, 2012 from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM (GMT) in Nottingham. For more details and to register.

The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology has published its most recent POSTnote.

The water used for production, known as “virtual” water, constitutes 95% of human water use. As pressure on the world’s water supply rises, recognition of the amount of water used within each step of production could play an important role in managing water use.

The August 2011 Number 385  POSTnote examines how virtual water use is calculated and its application within the global economy.