Managing the world’s water – sharing good practice

Dr Harry Dixon reports from the World Water Congress in Edinburgh

This week CEH organised a Special Session at the International Water Resources Association’s (IWRA) World Water Congress. The Congress is the Association’s 15th global gathering and this year it is being held in the shadow of Edinburgh Castle, reflecting the Scottish Government’s drive to grow the water sector under its HydroNation agenda.

At CEH, we host the UK Committee for Nation and International Hydrology (UKCNIH). This Committee, chaired by Professor Alan Jenkins, provides a forum for UK government departments, agencies, research bodies, professional societies and universities to discuss current issues and priorities related to freshwater research. The aim is to better coordinate UK engagement in national and international hydrological research.

Speakers in the special session on international catchment management science
and application at the World Water Congress XV.

Central to the Committee’s activities are the UK’s activities related to the International Hydrological Programme of UNESCO , for which CEH leads engagement on behalf of the Department for International Development (DFID), and involvement in the water related activities of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), for which Alan Jenkins is the UK Hydrological Adviser.

On behalf of the UKCNIH we convened a session at the World Water Congress to bring together a range of experts from both the UK and overseas involved in catchment management science. The aim was to discuss both the scientific and implementation challenges related to catchment based approaches to water management.

The Session was kicked off by Mark Williams, Scottish Water’s Head of Environmental Science and Regulation, who provided a very interesting set of examples of issues the water industry are faced with when tacking urban pollution. Next, David Harley, Water and Land Manager at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, provided a local perspective outlining the regulatory challenges related to the development of River Basin Management Plans and in particular the issue around rural defuse pollution.

The Congress is, as the name suggests an international gathering with around 900 delegates from across the work attending. One key aim of our Session was to discuss the role of international science programmes in relation to improving catchment management and one very interesting examples in this area came from Prof David Harper (University of Leicester and long-standing member of the UKCNIH) who provided an overview of his work on the Lake Naivasha basin in Kenya. David outlined his research on the ecohydrology of the basin, an area which provides 40% of all cut flowers that are sold in EU supermarkets.

Excellent talk by Prof David Harper about Lake Naivasha at #WWCXV. Great to see authoritative science on #ecohydrology linked to policy.

— David Tickner (@david_tickner) May 26, 2015

In addition to UK researchers and practitioners, we were very pleased to be joined by representatives of both UNESCO and WMO to give a UN perspective on the future direction for global science in this area and ideas on how the world community can improve catchment management. Dr Blanca E Jiménez Cisneros is the Secretary of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and UNESCO’s Director of Water Sciences. Blanca’s presentation set out the global challenges related to water security and the ways in which the IHP aims to provide a framework for global water science, policy development and education. Giacomo Teruggi from WMO detailed their activities under the Hydrology and Water Resources Programme and gave an interesting overview of the Associated Programme on Flood Management – a joint initiative by the WMO and Global Water Partnership to advocate the concept of Integrated Flood Management.

To bring the different ideas together, Prof Bob Ferrier (James Hutton Institute and member of CEH’s Science Development Group ) rose to the challenge of summarising the current issues and challenges in relation to catchment science and posed some thought provoking ideas. Following Bob’s presentation, Alan Jenkins adopted the role of David Dimbleby to host a Question Time style panel session with all our speakers to explore the issues further. The panel and audience discussed a range of questions covering: the key scientific questions to which catchment managers need answers; the challenge of mobilising individuals and organisations in relation to adaptation; and how to stimulate greater community engagement in managing the freshwater environment.

The Session generated some interesting discussions and highlighted the difficult challenges faced by the global community to improve catchment management. However, it also highlighted some great examples of UK scientists and practitioners rising to these challenges to deliver integrated catchment management approaches both in this country and overseas.

It is clear that as hydrologists we have an important role to play in developing water management in this area and that by working through organisations such as UNESCO and WMO we can ensure we learn from others internationally and that the good practices we have in the UK are shared around the world.

Dr Harry Dixon

Dr Harry Dixon is a Senior Hydrologist at CEH and the Secretary of the UK Committee for National and International Hydrology. He works closely with Prof Alan Jenkins to provide the Committee’s Secretariat and CEH’s leadership of UK engagement in international science programmes of WMO and UNESCO.

Related links

World Water Congress XV Special Session 4 outline of speakers 

World Water Congress XV

UK Committee for National and International Hydrology

Staff page of Prof Alan Jenkins, CEH

Staff page of Dr Harry Dixon, CEH

CEH gives evidence to Commons water quality inquiry

Two of our CEH colleagues, Professor Andrew Johnson and Mr Neil Runnalls, gave evidence to Parliament this week, as the House of Commons Science & Technology Committee continued its new inquiry into water quality.

You can view their evidence below (from approximately 42m 25s):



Written evidence has already been submitted to the inquiry which was launched in December 2012 after the European Commission proposed a list of chemicals whose release to the environment should be controlled by wastewater treatment. In the oral evidence from science and industry, the committee heard that some of the chemicals are widely used in pharmaceutical products but their toxicity or otherwise to the environment is not yet fully understood. Furthermore the cost of their removal from wastewater has been estimated at  more than £27 billion over 20 years, although such long-term investment could prove beneficial in managing future pollutant threats. Concern was also raised at the UK's position, particularly in England, in relation to the amount of water available to dilute waste.

CEH has extensive experience in water quality monitoring and in modelling chronic and extreme threats to the environment. Professor Johnson's research at CEH focuses on threats to the aquatic environment, such as posed by chemicals including endocrine disrupting substances, as well as nanoparticles and viruses. Neil Runnalls is Programme Manager of the NERC Water Security Knowledge Exchange Programme and a CEH Business Development Manager. He attended the session on behalf of Research Councils UK.

Others giving evidence included Thames Water, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, the Blueprint for Water Coalition, the Marine Conservation Society and Plymouth University.

You can view the full Terms of Reference of the water quality inquiry here. The Science and Technology Committee (Commons), which is chaired by Andrew Miller MP, is due to hear more evidence next month.

Additional information

Staff page of Professor Andrew Johnson, CEH

Science and Technology Committee (Commons)


Posted by Paulette Burns

From drought to flood – An Olympian Summer for hydrological change

Just four months ago more than ‘half of Britain was in drought’ with the UK facing its most severe water shortage since 1976. The Environment Minister was urging households to cut back on the amount of water they used, some rivers in England were at their lowest April levels for 36 years, and your correspondent was quoted in the Guardian stating “This [the late April rain] is not the solution for the deep aquifers which have been at some of the lowest levels ever recorded. We are still looking at next winter rainfall to recharge these.”

As many of you will have noticed the driest March in the UK for 59 years was followed by the wettest April in 101 years. The accumulated rainfall since then has been remarkable. In the four months from the beginning of April to the end of July rainfall amounts were the highest on record (from 1910) by a considerable margin in almost all regions of Great Britain, and provisionally the highest in the England & Wales rainfall series from 1766. Groundwater resources have recovered to levels that expert hydrologists and geologists had thought wouldn’t occur until the end of a (hopefully wet) winter 2012-2013. All hosepipe bans in southern England have been lifted and although groundwater levels remain low in slowly-responding parts of the Chalk and the Permo-Triassic sandstone, our most recent monthly Hydrological Summary for the UK was able to confidently state “The transformation in water resource status since early April is without any close modern parallel.”

Back in early May I was also asked by John Vidal of the Guardian to comment on what may happen if the ‘monsoon’ like conditions in April continued. My words, reproduced in the next day’s paper, were, "If it carries on like this for another few months things may improve [from a hydrological point of view]. But by then we will all be totally fed up." My prophecy was partially correct, the rain did carry on, and things did improve, but as far as I can tell, we’re not all totally fed up, perhaps thanks to an amazingly successful Olympics! Oh well, I suppose two out of three isn’t bad!

The July 2012 Hydrological Summary for the UK

Barnaby Smith



April to July 2012 UK River flows






The Plynlimon catchments - an open air laboratory

The Plynlimon catchments in central Wales are the most important intensively studied long-term research basins in the UK. Managed by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH), Plynlimon is among the key European and world sites in terms of catchment science - not just for the length of the records gathered (40 years and counting) but crucially because of the breadth of measurements, spanning hydrology and including water chemistry, groundwater studies, geomorphology, ecology and atmospheric science.

With the study now in its fifth decade, and inspired by a new paper* by Dr Mark Robinson, working with former colleagues John Rodda and John Sutcliffe, who played key roles in establishing Plynlimon, we take a look at the history behind the establishment of one of CEH's most significant scientific experiments, a long-term environmental monitoring project which has evolved and adapted to stay relevant to current problems and scientific needs.

Landscape view over the Plynlimon catchments in central Wales (photo: Simon Grant / CEH)

In the mid-20th century, against a backdrop of population growth, rising living standards and post-war industrial recovery, there was growing concern in the UK about increased demand for water and possible future water shortages. A severe drought in summer 1959 and dry winters in 1962/3 and 1963/4 underlined the belief in government circles that a national plan for water use was needed, as it seemed likely that demand would soon outstrip available resources.

There were concerns too about other factors potentially affecting water availability, not least the government's policy of encouraging widescale tree planting on reservoir catchments. The rapid growth characteristics of the conifer and the cheapness of the land resulted in conifer plantations on many upland regions of Britain throughout the first half of the 20th century. However, there were conflicting scientific views on the hydrological impact of forests, with some catchment studies, particularly in the USA, indicating that tree cover could reduce water yield relative to short vegetation.

Research in the late 1950s by Frank Law Senior, a water engineer in north-west England, tried to find out more about the water balance of woodlands under British conditions. His conclusions were controversial: that afforestation of the Stocks reservoir catchment area was substantially reducing runoff, with the additional evaporation representing a reduction in reservoir yield of over one third. At a time of anticipated increasing domestic and industrial water demands, the debate about water versus forestry was set for the decades ahead.

British hydrology and water industry were still rather fragmented in the decade after the Second World War, but these national pressures meant that more rational management of water resources was required. The particular need to understand the role of vegetation in the hydrological cycle led to the creation by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) of a Committee on Hydrological Research in 1961. This committee soon proposed the establishment of a specialist unit to be responsible for applied research into surface water hydrology, including studies of the water balance of catchment areas in relation to land use.

The new Hydrological Research Unit was set up in the following year and attached to the existing Hydraulics Research Station at Wallingford in Oxfordshire. A steering group was appointed to guide its studies, with a range of potentially competing stakeholder representatives from the Forestry Commission, Nature Conservancy, Water Research Association, Met Office and Agricultural Research Council.

The Unit was asked to conduct a hydrological study of catchments with contrasting land cover, preferably grassland and coniferous forest, since that was seen as the land use distinction most likely to reveal differences in behaviour and was the most common source of land use concern.  The catchments would need to be on watertight geology, and it was felt that the difference in water used by the two vegetation types would be most clearly apparent in relatively dry climate.

Where exactly to base the experiment was not a straightforward decision. It proved difficult to identify pairs of almost identical catchments that differed only in their vegetation and had landowner agreement for access. Plynlimon was not even on the original eight potentially suitable paired catchments identified. The climate criterion was later relaxed to include ‘wet’ sites, and the adjoining headwater catchments of the Severn and the Wye rivers draining the slopes of Pumlumon Fawr, i.e. Plynlimon, were added to the list, and later judged to be the most promising of the possible sites. The headwaters of each catchment provide a land use contrast between the two major upland land uses: moorland (Wye) and plantation forest (Severn).

In addition to the ongoing scientific debate concerning forest evaporation, the organisational framework for UK environmental research was undergoing major change as part of a wider government reorganisation. In 1965 the HRU was transferred to the newly formed Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The Unit’s remit was then expanded to encompass all aspects of the hydrological cycle including physical and applied studies, instrumentation and mathematical modelling.

The Plynlimon study officially started on 1 January 1967, with the NERC Annual Report foreseeing it as being an “outdoor laboratory of immense value to all sciences”. The delays in establishing a field site actually afforded the opportunity to develop expertise in cutting edge instruments and new technologies. There was pioneering work (widely adopted elsewhere) on neutron probes for soil water content measurement, as well as automatic weather stations capable of operating at remote locations, and new raingauge designs for windy sites.

Cefn Brywn crump weir on the River Wye, late 1960s

In recognition of the growing importance of hydrological research in Britain, NERC designated the HRU as a full component institute: on 1 April 1968 it became the Institute of Hydrology, which later became part of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. The Plynlimon study played a crucial role in proving beyond doubt the potentially serious reduction in water flows resulting from afforestation, leading to major changes in the management of water and land use by resource managers and policy makers.

Work continues at the Plynlimon catchments to this day. CEH conducts long-term measurements of weather, streamflow and chemical fluxes. We use this information to look for time trends, understand the processes operating, and investigate the impacts of land use on water resources, floods, drought flows, stream sediment and dissolved chemicals and acidification. 

Other Plynlimon research highlights

·        The original aim of the Plynlimon catchment experiment was to make measurements which could resolve the uncertainties concerning the water use of conifer forests. It not only helped to answer this question but subsequently developed into a long-term multi-disciplinary project.

·        Building upon the established catchment infrastructure, hydrochemical measurements commenced and now more than almost 30 years are available, together with the longer record of hydrological data.

·        The Plynlimon catchments have been one of the more successful catchment studies, advancing science and its findings have directly altered UK forestry environmental policy and informed UK government policy.

·        The Plynlimon study provided a considerable stimulus to the development of the science of hydrology in Britain. The research findings have been reported in more than 500 papers in refereed journals, and much of the Plynlimon record has been freely available to the international research community for decades, and is also accessible via the internet from the CEH Information Gateway.

  

Summarising the importance of the Plynlimon catchments, Dr Mark Robinson told us, “We owe a great debt to the farsightedness of the stakeholders and academics who recognised the need for, and supported the establishment of, the research catchments at Plynlimon. The catchments provided an important focus in British hydrology, promoting excellence in experimental hydrology and advancing our understanding of the physical processes controlling the hydrological cycle.”

Additional information

* The full paper reference is: Robinson, M., Rodda, J.C., and Sutcliffe, J.V. (2012), Long-term environmental monitoring in the UK: origins and achievements of the Plynlimon catchment study. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2012.00534.x 

View archive photos from Plynlimon on Flickr

CEH: Why monitor upland catchments? [PDF, 4.95mb]