Newcastle University

Integrated River Basin Management

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A course for scientists, engineers and managers who influence land and water issues within river basins, for whom a deeper understanding of integrated river basin management would enhance their own specialist stakeholder roles.

Upon completion of the course delegates will:

• Have a comprehensive understanding of integrated river basin management
• Have the capacity to formulate integrated river basin management objectives and understand how to balance conflicting objectives
• Have the capacity to integrate technical and socio-economic information to support decision making
• Have an understanding of how sustainability can be incorporated into integrated river basin management
• Have the capacity to quantify the state of a river basin, and to prepare an agenda for sustainable integrated river basin management

Activity	Impact
Water abstraction	Ecology, water quantity and quality
Farming	Water quantity and quality
Forestry, tourism	Conservation, ecology, economics
Industry	Water use, effluent discharge
Urbanisation	Water demand, wastewater

What impacts will the Water Frameworks Directive have? What are the implications of CAP reform?

How does the existing institutional framework influence river basin management?

Organization	Function
Utilities	Potable water, security of supply, treatment of effluent discharge, shareholder profit
Environment Agency	"The guardians of the environment"
Councils	The service of the people
OFWAT	Regulators of water industry and public pricing
EC	The Water Framework Directive
NFU, CLA	Protection of the rural economy

All components of the natural and man-made water cycle must be understood and managed.

Management	Objective
Water resources	Satisfy demand, standards of service
Water quality	Comply with EC directives
Ecology	Conserve biodiversity and habitats
Floods / droughts	Mitigate impacts

If we understand the needs of stakeholders within the context of likely land use and climate change, how do we decide what to do next?

Decision making	Methods
Decision support systems: DSS	GIS, modelling, AI and hydroinformatics
Expertise	Guidance materials or expert systems
Catchment Action Plans	Outreach, education and public participation
Reconciling conflicts	Mutual understanding of catchment sustainability

Who should attend?

All scientists, engineers and managers who influence land and water issues within river basins, and who feel that a deeper understanding of integrated river basin management would enhance their own specialist stakeholder roles.

Setting an agenda for Integrated River Basin Management

This course is based around a real world case study of the Derbyshire Derwent. You will thus learn the generic theory of Integrated River Basin Management and apply it to a known catchment. You will use a series of software tools including a virtual tour, water resources and rainfall runoff models, and a multi-criteria decision support tool.

During the week, you will be expected to work in small groups, producing an 'Agenda for Integrated River Basin Management'. You will generate your ideas based on the knowledge you will have gained during the week. On Friday, you will present a short summary of your group ideas. The findings will then be debated in a round table discussion.

Course Outline

• Impacts of the rural environment on water quality
• Diffuse pollution case study
• The rural economy
• Water and Governance/Water Framework Directive
• Water resources management
• Multi criteria decision framework
• Environmental regulation
• Flood warning, people and the media
• Discussion of the EA and the WFD
• Flooding and uncertainty case study
• Hydroecological understanding
• Wetland management
• Water For All
• Water industry regulation
• Institutional constraints to IRBM
• Creating a framework for IRBM

Course ends at approximately 14:00

Presenters

School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

• Prof Enda O'Connell (Course Leader)
• Dr Jaime Amezaga
• Dr Sean Burke
• Dr Richard Dawson
• Prof Chris Kilsby
• Dr Greg O'Donnell

Academic Professionals

• Prof Gerald Noone
• Dr Ivan Weir
  • Newcastle University
    Business School

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