About Drought Showcase Review (Post-Event)

Showcase Review 

A round-up of presentations, research and outputs from 

the RCUK Drought and Water Scarcity Programme held in 

Birmingham on March 14th, 2018. 

www.AboutDrought.info 

@AboutDrought 

info@AboutDrought.info

Contents 

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Thank You 

Drought & Water Scarcity Programme 

Drought Risk & You 

Historic Droughts 

IMPETUS 

MaRIUS 

ENDOWS 

Newsletter 

Showcase Programme 

Plenary Session Speakers 

Sessions 

Agriculture 

Monitoring & Early Warning 

Data 

Environment 

Water Supply 

Drought Narratives 

Communities 

Waterways Walk 

Datasets 

Organisations Who Attended 

Stay In Touch 

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Thank You 

Welcome to the event review magazine following the 

About Drought Showcase and thank you to all the delegates 

who attended and to all the presenters. Around 120 people 

representing a very broad range of interests and expertise joined 

us to connect with this truly interdisciplinary research initiative, 

the RCUK Drought & Water Scarcity Programme. 

In this pack you will find presentations which 

illustrate the diverse, interdisciplinary and crosssectoral 

content which so many delegates – and 

speakers – have told us gave such a valuable 

insight into drought and water scarcity in the UK. 

We would like to thank all our speakers and 

facilitators who shared their expertise at the 

About Drought Showcase, and all the delegates 

for your questions, comments and opinions which 

will feed into the direction of the programme, 

its outputs and future workshops, events and 

engagement activities. 

Have you viewed the event video? 

Further thanks to everyone who was interviewed 

for the About Drought video documentary. 

Please watch it by clicking here and share it with 

your colleagues. If you would like to feature it on 

your website please contact the project office by 

emailing info@AboutDrought.info 

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UK Drought & Water 

Scarcity Programme 

Droughts and water scarcity jointly pose a substantial threat to the environment, agriculture, infrastructure, 

society and culture in the UK, yet our ability to characterise and predict their occurrence, duration and intensity, 

as well as minimise their impacts, is often inadequate. 

The UK Droughts & Water Scarcity research programme is a five-year interdisciplinary, £12 million+ NERC 

programme in collaboration with ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC and AHRC. It is supporting improved decision-making in 

relation to droughts and water scarcity by providing research that identifies, predicts and responds to the interrelationships 

between their multiple drivers and impacts. 

The programme’s research is UK-focused, and contributes to NERC’s natural hazards and climate system 

strategic science themes. 

Four projects are funded under the UK 

Droughts & Water Scarcity programme: 


IMPETUS 

MaRIUS 

DRY 

Understanding past 

drought episodes to 

develop improved tools 

for the future 

Improving predictions of 

drought to inform user 

decisions 

Managing the 

risks, impacts and 

uncertainties of drought 

and water scarcity 

Bringing together 

stories and science to 

support better decisionmaking 

for drought risk 

management 

The final project, ENDOWS, (known as About 

Drought) engages with stakeholders, practitioners 

and the public to involve them in the UK Drought 

and Water Scarcity programme and to disseminate 

information about the findings, outputs and datasets 

zfrom the programme that everyone can use. 

SHOWCASE VIDEO 

You can find highlights from the About Drought 

Showcase by clicking HERE or following this link: 

bit.ly/AboutDroughtHighlights 

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The Projects 

Find out more about the 

Drought & Water Scarcity 

projects 

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DWS 

Projects 

dryproject.co.uk 

Droughts and water shortage can impact on the 

environment, agriculture, infrastructure, society 

and culture, affecting us all. The DRY project was 

founded in April 2014, with an aim to develop an 

easy-to-use, evidence-based resource to inform 

decision-making for drought risk management in 

the UK over a four-year period. 

The project spans seven catchment areas in 

England, Wales and Scotland to reflect different 

hydrological, socio-economic and cultural contexts 

in the UK. 

It takes a unique approach because it draws 

together information from multiple perspectives 

on drought science, stakeholder engagement, 

citizen science and narrative storytelling to better 

understand drought risks, while other studies have 

focused on mathematical modelling of drought 

risk. 

A key part of this is using different types of data 

together to build a better picture of drought risk 

in the UK. In the project, ‘data’ can mean statistics 

derived from a hydrological model to stories and 

images collected from a river catchment area 

and we think each of these is equally valuable in 

helping us understand how we can better cope 

with drought. 

To achieve this DRY incorporates a two-way 

process for gathering and sharing knowledge 

about drought. Narratives are stimulated 

from discussions around images, memories of 

historical drought events and the outcomes of the 

hydrological drought models being developed in 

the team. The narratives provide context to feed 

into our drought models which predict future 

drought scenarios. 

The project is also carrying out citizen science 

projects engaging people and generating learning 

opportunities surrounding drought impacts on 

plants, crops, trees and domestic water use. At 

each stage of the process the project shares 

findings with groups and incorporates feedback 

into the research design. 

The project leader is Professor Lindsey McEwen 

@Project_DRY 

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DWS 

Projects 

historicdroughts.ceh.ac.uk 

Historic Droughts aims to develop a crossdisciplinary 

understanding of past drought episodes 

that have affected the UK, with a view to developing 

improved tools for managing droughts in future. 

Drought and water scarcity are significant threats 

to livelihoods and well-being in many countries, 

including the UK. Parts of the country are already 

water-stressed and are facing a wide range of 

pressures, including an expanding population and 

intensifying exploitation of increasingly limited water 

resources. In addition, many regions may become 

significantly drier in future due to environmental 

changes, all of which implies major challenges to 

water resource management. However, droughts 

are not simply natural hazards. There are also a 

range of socio-economic and regulatory factors 

that may influence the course of droughts, such 

as water consumption practices and abstraction 

licensing regimes. Consequently, if drought and 

water scarcity are to be better managed, there is a 

need for a more detailed understanding of the links 

between physical (i.e. meteorological, hydrological) 

and social and economic systems during droughts. 

With this research gap in mind, the Historic 

Droughts project aims to develop an 

interdisciplinary understanding of drought from 

a range of perspectives. Based on an analysis 

of information from a wide range of sectors 

(hydrometeorological, environmental, agricultural, 

regulatory, social and cultural), the project aims to 

characterise and quantify the history of drought 

and water scarcity since the late 19th century. 

The project will deliver the first systematic account 

(the UK Drought Inventory) of past droughts in the 

UK. The Inventory will form the basis of a novel joint 

hydrometeorological and socio-economic analysis 

that will lead to a ‘systems-based’ understanding of 

drought – i.e. an understanding of the multiple and 

interconnected drivers of drought, the impacts of 

drought and the feedbacks between them. 

We expect this systems-based understanding 

to improve decision-making for future drought 

management and planning, and to facilitate more 

informed and effective public discourse related to 

drought. 

The project leader is Jamie Hannaford at the 

Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) 

@HistDroughtsUK 

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DWS 

Projects 

aboutdrought.info 

IMPETUS brings together scientists from the 

meteorological, land surface, surface water and 

groundwater communities and social scientists 

from the water demand and forecast usability 

communities. 

The project involves internationally-leading 

scientists and social scientists from three 

NERC Research Centres (the National Centre 

for Atmospheric Science (NCAS), the British 

Geological Survey (BGS) and the Centre for 

Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), four leading 

universities (Oxford, Reading, Newcastle, and 

Southampton), the Met Office and the European 

Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts 

(ECMWF). 

Photo Credit: Emma Sheppard 

IMPETUS aims to improve the forecasting of UK 

drought on monthly to decadal timescales, by 

improving meteorological, hydrological and water 

demand forecasts and how they are combined 

to produce drought forecasts. This will be done 

in conjunction with stakeholders to ensure that 

drought forecasts are relevant for decision making. 

The project leader is Professor Len Shaffrey at 

University of Reading. 

@AboutDrought 

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DWS 

Projects 

mariusdroughtproject.org 

The MaRIUS project introduces a risk-based 

approach to drought and water scarcity to inform 

management decisions and to prepare households. 

The span of the MaRIUS project is large and covers 

physical and social science topics including: drought 

governance; drought options and management; 

community responses and environmental 

competency. 

It includes climatic aspects of drought and the 

derivation of a synthetic ‘drought event library’; 

hydrological responses both on a catchment and 

national scale; effects on water quality including 

nutrient concentration in rivers and algal 

concentrations in reservoirs, and effect of land use 

change; the ramifications on water resources on 

the Thames catchment and also nationally. It also 

includes the impact of drought and water scarcity 

on terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems; agriculture 

and farming; the economy; and on electricity 

production. 

MaRIUS has developed new methodologies, 

datasets and models for the analysis of drought 

and water scarcity impacts on river flow, water 

quality, ecology, farming, the economy, and how 

these combine to affect people. 

Some researchers in MaRIUS are using scenario 

modelling and case studies across a number of 

scales to understand both the drought impacts at 

a local level as well as the institutional decisionmaking 

by governments and water companies. The 

modelling work uses climatically rigourous drought 

scenarios and their impacts on water quality, 

agriculture, biodiversity and economic losses. 

In addition to computer modelling, social science 

and stakeholder engagement are a key part of the 

project, helping us to understand the role of the 

community, institutions, regulators and markets in 

drought management. 

The project leader is Professor Jim Hall at the 

Environmental Change Institute, University of 

Oxford 

mariusdroughtproject.org 

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DWS 

Projects 

ENDOWS 

aboutdrought.info 

ENDOWS (Engaging diverse stakeholders and 

publics with outputs from the Drought and 

Water Scarcity Programme) brings together the 

successful stakeholder engagement elements of the 

four Drought and Water Scarcity (DWS) projects 

to further develop and promote understanding of 

the key messages from the programme. Building 

on the activities of DRY, IMPETUS, MaRIUS and 

Historic Drought, ENDOWS is funded by the 

Research Councils to inform adaptation and 

management decisions before, during and after 

drought events, using the new data and findings of 

the DWS programme. 

ENDOWS has brought these activities together 

under the banner ‘About Drought’ an accessible 

programme of informed engagement with 

regulators, industry, business, policy-makers, 

communities and sector organisations. 

David Throup/Environment Agency 

Knowledge Exchange is a key function of About 

Drought, facilitating effective networking between 

the research community and stakeholder 

communities; encouraging the building of reliable 

contacts and stimulating new working relationships 

and accelerating the speed at which the outputs 

of the DWS programme are being implemented 

to support evidence-based decisions in drought 

planning and management. 

The About Drought Showcase is a one-stop crosssectoral 

forum bringing all the DWS projects 

together in one place on one day. Stakeholders and 

decision-makers from across the board can access 

the latest DWS programme developments, hear 

directly from the experts and give direct feedback. 

Experts from across the DWS programme can 

share their findings so far and invite feedback on 

how stakeholders want the information presented 

to best support policy and business decisions. 

It is planned to hold a final About Drought 

Showcase in 2019. 

The About Drought website http://www. 

AboutDrought.info is being developed as an 

authoritative source of expertise, and as a publicly 

available platform for informed comment and 

opinion. The About Drought Twitter account 

@AboutDrought highlights drought-related news 

and opinions from the UK and around the world. 

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@AboutDrought

Newsletter 

Event debrief: Business impacts of water scarcity 

What are the potential impacts of drought on UK 

businesses? And what are the priorities when it comes 

to sharing information about water scarcity? These 

were two themes discussed at a Business Stakeholder 

workshop held at UWE, Bristol, on 31.10.17. 

Discussions pointed up uncertainty about the 

future, and the need for earlier warning systems 

(for businesses to understand with greater lead time 

when water restrictions would occur; the later the 

warnings, the more expensive it becomes). Read more 

at: http://aboutdrought.info/event-debrief-20171031/, 

and if your business could contribute to this UK-wide 

discussion, please contact: Lindsey.McEwen@uwe.ac.uk 

Films are available from MaRIUS Live! and are published 

at http://aboutdrought.info/marius-managing-therisks-impacts-and-uncertainties-of-drought-andwater-scarcity-live/ 

and on the MaRIUS website 

mariusdroughtproject.org. 

If you attended MaRIUS LIVE! But have not yet 

given your feedback, please do so here: https://goo.gl/ 

forms/18gGmNXzllKJWlqh1. 

The post event delegate pack, including slide 

presentations and other materials, are available here: 

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1axroXhYqRjnTdkxt1- 

OdVpuzCTKpuMRc?usp=sharing 

Event debrief: Which communities and why? 

Event debrief: MaRIUS LIVE! 

Trevor Bishop, Director of Strategy and Planning 

at OFWAT, described MaRIUS as “one of the most 

important bits of research that we’ve seen in drought 

and water scarcity” as more than 80 delegates met 

to hear presentations setting out the findings of the 

project’s research and the outputs available for use. 

The project researchers outlined their findings on the 

effects of drought on people and the environment, on 

government, communities, water quality and resources, 

ecology, agriculture, the economy and electricity supply. 

How best do we connect a diverse range of publics 

and communities with research arising from the NERC 

Drought and Water Scarcity research programme? 

This was a theme discussed at the first Community 

Stakeholder workshop held at UWE, Bristol on 

27.10.17. This group forms the basis of a ‘community of 

practice’, developing and testing evidence that can be 

used in engaging communities in drought risk decisionmaking. 

Read more at: http://aboutdrought.info/eventdebrief-20171027/, 

and if you or your organisation 

would like to get involved, please contact: Lindsey. 

McEwen@uwe.ac.uk 

Click here to sign up 

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Programme 

9.15 

10.00 

10.15 

11.30 

12.30 

13.30 

14.30 

14.35 

15.35 

15.55 

16.40 - 17.30 

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Registration & networking 

Project stands 

Welcome - Jamie Hannaford and Sally Stevens 

Opening Remarks from the Funders – Ruth Kelman (NERC) 

Plenary Session 

Chair: John Bloomfield, BGS 

Views from stakeholders 

Stacey Sharman (Defra) 

Droughts: Defra’s perspective 

Steven Wade (Atkins) 

Drought: challenges and opportunities, a water industry perspective 

Ana-Maria Millan (Consumer Council for Water) 

Saving water: seeing the bigger picture 

Highlights from the DWS Programme 

• Historic Droughts (Jamie Hannaford) 

• IMPETUS (Len Shaffrey) 

• MaRIUS (Helen Gavin) 

• DRY (Lindsey McEwen) 

Primer on ENDOWS (Jamie Hannaford) 

1st interactive session - Parallel sessions 

• Agriculture 

• Monitoring & Early Warning 

• Data 

Lunch 


Waterways Walk leaves at 1pm. 

2nd session 

• Drought Narratives 

• Water Supply 1: Modelling and Methodologies 

• Environment 

3rd session 

• Communities 

• Water Supply 2: Governance and Regulation 

• Data 

Afternoon break 


Plenary feedback and panel discussion (breakout 

group leads & speakers) and Q&A 

Drought research and management: what’s next? 

Closing comments from Paul Hickey (EA) 

Drinks 

Stands & Networking

Speakers 

Guest Speakers 

Paul Hickey, Deputy Director - Water Resources, Environment Agency 

Stacy Sharman, Head of Research in the Analysis and Evidence team, working in Water and 

Flood Risk Management, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs 

Steven Wade, Associate Director for Climate and Resilience, Atkins 

Ana-Maria Millan, Policy Manager, Consumer Council for Water 

For NERC 

Ruth Kelman, Science Programmes Officer Natural Environment Research Council 

For DWS 

Jamie Hannaford, Leader, Hydrological Status and Outlooks group, Centre for Ecology & 

Hydrology; DWS Programme Co-ordination Chair and Principal Investigator, ENDOWS and 


Dr Helen Gavin, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, MaRIUS 

Prof Lindsey McEwen, Professor in Environmental Management, Centre for Water, Communities 

and Resilience, UWE Bristol, DRY 

Prof Len Shaffrey, Professor of Climate Science, NCAS, University of Reading, IMPETUS 

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Showcase 

Timetable 

Sessions content 

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Interactive Sessions 

Agriculture 

SPEAKERS 

Professor Jerry Knox, Cranfield University (Facilitator) 

Dr Ivan Grove, Harper Adams University 

Dr Dolores Rey, Cranfield University 

Dr Gloria Salmoral, Cranfield University 

WHAT WAS THIS SESSION ABOUT? 

Four ‘flash talks’ described below, were followed by an 

open discussion, led by Jerry Knox, addressing some of 

the key questions raised in the presentations. 

A water strategy for the agricultural and 

horticultural sector (Jerry Knox) - a synopsis of 

progress in the ongoing process to develop a water 

strategy for the agricultural and horticultural sectors. 

This is intended to support and guide the industry in 

securing ‘a fair share of water’ and is being co-designed 

with key informants who will likely be most impacted 

by pending changes in water abstraction licensing and 

regulatory reform. 

What is the value of secondary water markets 

for abstractors? (Dolores Rey) - Defra has signalled 

support for rapid water trading to allow abstractors 

to share access to water quickly, but there is little 

understanding of the advantages and disadvantages 

of such a system, how it would work in reality, or 

how these secondary markets might fit with the new 

abstraction system. Lola reported on an ongoing 

research project aimed at providing Defra with 

policy-relevant recommendations for how secondary 

markets might be designed, implemented and managed 

in England to efficiently and effectively improve UK 

resilience to drought and water scarcity, reducing 

associated economic damages to the agricultural and 

food sectors. 

Risk of economic impacts to agricultural irrigation 

due to drought management (Gloria Salmoral) - an 

overview of a spatially explicit national risk assessment 

of the economic losses in irrigated agriculture under 

drought conditions from England and Wales in three 

uneven climatic periods: baseline (1975-2004), near 

future (2020-2049) and far future (2070-2099). 

Does climate change mean crop change? (Ivan 

Grove ) - an overview of research undertaken in the 

DRY Project (part of the UK Drought and Water s 

Scarcity programme) on crop and drought experiments, 

and some reflections on the resilience of crops. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

This was a great opportunity to contribute to developing thinking around agriculture, water scarcity and drought. 

Thoughts were given on questions such as: 

• Is water really that important for agriculture? How might a strategy help the industry? 

• What water-related risks are facing the industry? How should industry engage with other sectors to reduce 

future vulnerability? 

• Is it important to prioritise UK water for food (crops) in dry periods? 

• What are the barriers to crop change from growers and consumers? 

• What economic losses due to water restrictions might arise in the future? What measures might mitigate these 

losses? 

• How could collaborative management between irrigators and water authorities during drought conditions be 

improved? 

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SPEAKERS 

Session Leader: Jamie Hannaford, Leader, Hydrological Status and Outlooks Group, CEH 

Discussion Facilitator: Dr Ingo Schüder, Business Development Manager (training), CEH 

Richard Davis, Senior Advisor, National Water Resources Hydrology Team, Environment Agency 

Lucy Barker, Hydrological Analyst, CEH 

Professor Len Shaffrey, National Centre for Atmospheric Science and University of Reading 


While little can be done to prevent droughts occurring, 

actions can be taken to mitigate drought impacts 

on society and the environment. To support the 

implementation of such actions, drought monitoring 

and early warning (MEW) systems are a vital part of 

drought preparedness and planning. MEW includes 

tools for both situation monitoring (‘where are we 

now’) and forecasting (‘What will happen next’) over a 

range of timescales from a few days to seasons ahead 

and beyond. There is already substantial, operational 

MEW activity underway in the UK (e.g. the EA’s Water 

Situation Reports, CEH/BGS/Met Office Hydrological 

Summaries and Outlooks) and MEW activities are 

carried out by stakeholders across the full spectrum 

of organisations involved in drought management. 

Nevertheless, stakeholder engagement within the 

DWS programme has identified a number of gaps in 

existing MEW, and opportunities for improved systems 

in future. 

This interactive session presented some of the 

outcomes of DWS Programme engagement around 

MEW needs for a range of stakeholders, and also heard 

directly from the Environment Agency, as key decisionmakers, 

about priority needs in this area. Delegates 

heard highlights of the science emerging from the DWS 

programme. In particular: (i) how programme datasets 

and tools for mapping and visualisation could support 

more dynamic, interactive situation monitoring in 

future (ii) how recent DWS Programme advances in 

meteorological and hydrological seasonal forecasting 

could be used to support improved decision-making in 

future. It concluded with a facilitated discussion aimed 

at mapping out key priorities for MEW based around 

achievable outcomes from the final stage of the DWS 

programme, ENDOWS. 

Hurstwood Reservoir during the 2010 drought 

©United Utilities 

WHAT HAPPENED 

This session attracted delegates engaged in, or interested in, drought planning and management and keen to find 

out how drought monitoring and forecasting systems can help them. They found out about the latest science 

emerging in this area, and how it can aid decision-making. Delegates met the researchers and participated in 

discussions with the team and other stakeholders, finding out about opportunities to get involved with ongoing 

research and knowledge exchange activities. 

Delegates also visited a stand presenting on monitoring and early warning and played our interactive forecasting game 

during the evening networking session. 

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Data 

SPEAKERS 

Session Leader: Matt Fry, CEH (Droughts programme data coordinator) 

Simon Parry, Drought researcher, CEH (New past drought data) 

Dr Alison Kay, Senior modeller, CEH (New future scenario data) 

Dr Katie Smith, Hydrological modeller, CEH (Interactive tools for data access) 


Data for drought understanding 

The About Droughts programme is releasing a huge 

number of drought datasets, and is developing tools to 

make this data easier to access for end users. 

This interactive session: 

• provided more detail on the datasets being produced 

(historic data and reconstructions, future scenarios, 

social and socio-economic data) 

• described the tools planned for making data access 

simpler 

• provided a chance to discuss potential uses and users 

of this data, and identify gaps 

• allowed attendees to “vote” to help prioritise 

activities in this area. 

Datasets being released by programme partners 

include: 

• Historic Met Office rain gauge data enhanced with 

newly digitised gauges to improve coverage (and 

updated gridded rainfall datasets) back to the 1860s. 

• Gridded Potential Evapotranspiration (already 

released) from 1891 

• Reconstructed / modelled daily river flows from 1891 

for a selection of gauged catchments from 3 models: 

Grid-to-Grid, AirGR and Dynamic TopModel 

• Reconstructed / modelled gridded (1km) monthly 

river flows and soil moisture from 1891 from the 

Grid-to-Grid model 

• Reconstructed historic groundwater level series for 

50 boreholes from 1891. 

• Extended standardised drought indicators based on 

past rainfall, river flow and groundwater level datasets 

• Probabilistic scenario data (100 ensemble members) 

for two future periods (2020-2049 and 2070-2099) 

under a high emission scenario, including full gridded 

climate outputs, and daily and monthly river flow and 

soil moisture series 

• An inventory of references to past droughts, from 

national, regional and agricultural media, parliamentary 

debate, and personal histories. 

• A database of UK reservoir development 

A full list can be seen by clicking here 

WHAT HAPPENED 

The session described these datasets in more detail. Some tools for enhanced data access were demonstrated 

and discussions enabled prioritisation of future work: 

• What derived datasets would be useful (e.g. catchment average series, change factors for future scenarios, etc)? 

• What real-time drought metrics would be of interest? 

• How can we facilitate ease of access to data, e.g. web services, example code, user guidance? 

• How can user interfaces make this data easier to pick up and use? 

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Environment 

SPEAKERS 

Dr Francois Edwards, CEH, Wallingford 

Professor Paul Whitehead, Oxford University 

Dr Pam Berry, Oxford University 

Dr Ingo Schüder, CEH, Wallingford (Facilitator) 


Delegates heard three ‘flash talks’ described on 

the right, following which Ingo Schüder facilitated a 

40-minute open discussion addressing some of the key 

questions raised in the presentations. 

Woodlands (Pam Berry) 

A synopsis of our knowledge on the possible impacts 

of droughts on trees and woodlands in the UK, based 

on modelling undertaken in the UK Droughts and 

Water Scarcity Programme. 

Water quality (Paul Whitehead) 

A brief overview of impacts of low flows and climate 

change on water quality and phytoplankton in UK rivers 

based of low flow and drought research undertaken in 

the UK Droughts and Water Scarcity Programme. 

River Ems, Summer 2012 ©Francois Edwards 

Freshwater (Francois Edwards) 

An overview of ecological health and resilience to water 

scarcity in UK rivers: key messages and knowledge gaps 

based on research undertaken in the UK Droughts and 

Water Scarcity Programme. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Delegates contributed to developing thinking around 

the environment, water scarcity and drought on 

questions such as: 

• How should trade-offs between environmental flows 

and water supply during a drought be communicated? 

• What might a new set of intuitive drought and water 

scarcity indicators for the environment look like? 

• What might be some of the implications of water 

scarcity and drought for forestry and conservation of 

woodlands in Great Britain? 

• What might be some of the implications for 

conservation and forestry? 

• How should drought be defined from a water quality 

perspective? 

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Water Supply 1 

SPEAKERS 

Session Leader: Dr Helen Gavin, Environmental 

Change Institute, University of Oxford 

Paul Hickey, Environment Agency 

Jamie Hannaford, CEH 

Dr Gemma Coxon, University of Bristol 

Dr Mohammad Mortazavi, University of Oxford 

Professor Len Shaffrey, University of Reading 

Dr Chris Decker, University of Oxford 

Dr John Bloomfield, BGS 

Nick Honeyball, Affinity Water 

WHAT WERE THESE SESSIONS ABOUT? 

Water Supply 1: Modelling and Methodologies 

Water Supply 2: Governance and Regulation 

The policy-making and decision-making landscape 

for droughts and water scarcity is changing with 

implications for many stakeholders: the 2014 Water 

Act’s duty of resilience significantly affects water 

companies; the first examination of water resources at 

a scale covering England and Wales (Water UK 2016) 

advocated a more strategic approach to the analysis 

and management of drought risk; and discussions 

have commenced on introducing formal regional 

management of water resources. 

While the UK has a well evolved framework for 

drought and water resources planning, there is a need 

to enhance robustness, particularly with regard to 

future droughts. Similarly, while hydrological monitoring 

is advanced, drought forecasts and outlooks remain 

uncertain, which hinders their uptake. 

The evidence being developed in this workstream 

has potential to inform operational water resources 

planning and drought management. We want 

to work with a range of stakeholders such as 

water companies, regulators, and consultancies 

to ensure our objectives will assist, namely: 

1. Develop standardised stress tests and tools for risk 

based water resources planning 

2. Provide recommendations and guidance for 

hydrological modelling in practical applications 

3. Develop tools to monitor, forecast and manage 

drought. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Within the two public water supply sessions delegates heard from invited practitioners on their perspectives and 

knowledge / data needs. Workstream researchers summarised their work and the existing and expected outputs. 

A discussion built on this flow of information to identify how the research can meet information needs and to 

connect people to create outputs of common use. 

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FACILITATORS AND PRESENTERS 

Session Leader: Dr Rebecca Pearce, University of Exeter 

Dr Carmen Dayrell Gomes Da Costa, University of Lancaster 

Dr Helen Baker, University of Lancaster 

Dr Dolores Rey Vicario, Cranfield University 


How do we talk about drought? 

Communicating drought information presents many 

difficulties, not least deciding when to officially announce 

a drought, identifying how best to describe the 

situation and choosing the most appropriate language 

to use. The dynamics of the situation inevitably give 

rise to satirical jibes if it rains and a blaming culture if 

it doesn’t. To many, the word drought is just shorthand 

for hosepipe ban. 

Based on the evidence provided, discussions focused on 

the true meaning of drought to those who experience 

them. We discussed the answer to the question: 

How do we talk about drought and how can we 

improve our drought communications? 

In this interactive session we carefully examined 

some of the ways that droughts have previously been 

discussed in national, regional and local media. We 

compared these discourses with oral history narratives 

based on memories of past droughts. 

We drew on the newly released Historic Drought 

Inventory: a collection of news articles, official reports 

and personal diary entries relating to some of the key 

droughts in living memory. We also looked at fresh 

analysis of media uses of the word drought and the 

subjects it is often associated with, which are not 

always anything to do with diminishing water supplies. 

Tabloid newspaper analysis of the word ‘drought’ and its 

collocates - Dr Carmen Dayrell, ESRC Centre for Corpus 

Approaches to Social Science, University of Lancaster 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Science communicators and others involved in 

preparing advice about droughts and water shortages 

for a variety of audiences, joined the session. They 

learned about new social research in this area, the 

Historic Drought Inventory and how best to utilise 

the resulting data. Delegates were able to review and 

refine their own drought communication methods. 

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Communities 

SPEAKERS 

Session Leader: Professor Lindsey McEwen, Centre for Water, Communities and Resilience, UWE Bristol 

Professor Mike Wilson, School of Arts, English and Drama, Loughborough University 

Dr Liz Roberts, Centre for Water, Communities and Resilience, UWE Bristol 

Dr Ragab Ragab, CEH, Wallingford 


Storying drought with communities: who are the 

harbingers of drought and the watershed thinkers? 

This session explored how stories and storytelling 

can come into the same space as specialist science in 

drought risk decision-making (past, present and future) 

at a catchment scale. 

During the session, delegates: 

• thought about catchments as units in place-based, 

water thinking in a drought risk context 

• explored what stories bring to the table in terms of 

perceptions and behaviours 

• shared stories that have emerged from catchments in 

the DRY project, identifying key groups who are already 

sensitised to prolonged dry periods. These included 

allotment holders and gardeners – already exercising 

water thinking scaling up from the hyperlocal 

• shared some of DRY’s video reflections on the 

storying process as prompts for group discussion 

• shared ‘hands on’ experience of our processes of 

crowd tagging of stories and active listening, and 

• showcased some of the ways to integrate stories and 

science through story mapping, bite-sized science and 

catchment-based drought impact indices. 

‘Visioning water adaptations’ - one participant’s storyboard 

from a community storytelling workshop in the Bevills Leam 

catchment in the Fens. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

Delegates left with: 

• a better understanding of how storytelling can contribute to evidence bases for local water management and 

drought risk decision-making 

• new insights into the issues and opportunities in bringing storytelling and science together in drought risk 

decision-making 

• experience of being hands-on in the DRY process of making stories searchable and the value of active listening 

in those processes 

• new insights into the strategies experimented on in DRY to bring stories and science together as an evidence 

base for decision-making 

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Waterways Walk 

SPEAKERS 

Session Leader: Dr Kevin Grecksch, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, 

University of Oxford 

Dr Bettina Lange, Associate Professor of Law and Regulation, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford 

Other speakers included local stakeholders and showcase event participants 

INTRODUCTION 

Kevin Grecksch, a social scientist at the University of 

Oxford’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, specialising 

in water governance and climate change adaptation, 

led this informative walk along the canals of central 

Birmingham and the city centre. Kevin was involved 

in the MaRIUS drought project where he investigated 

drought and water scarcity management options in 

England and Wales. 

The 90-minute walk stopped along the route for 

insights from stakeholders and to exchange ideas. 

This walk was part of the ENDOWS work task 

‘Innovation, Communities, and Corporate Water’, 

which is also led by Kevin Grecksch. The work task’s aim 

is to gain a deeper understanding of water efficiency 

campaigns with public sector organisations - schools, 

universities, hospitals, council buildings. 

WHAT HAPPENED 

The walk provided space for informal discussions of questions such as: 

• What is the value of water? 

• How do people experience water efficiency campaigns? 

• What role should citizens play in the management of drought and water scarcity? 

• What water efficiency campaigns would you be interested in contributing to? 

• Have you participated in water efficiency campaigns at your workplace? 

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Datasets 

The NERC UK Drought and Water Scarcity Programme is releasing a number of datasets over the next 18 

months together with interfaces for accessing and visualising data over the web and guidance for use of the data. 

For more information on these datasets, please email Matt Fry (mfry@ceh.ac.uk). 

Find this information online by clicking here 

Historic hydrometeorological 

data 

Click here for the About 

Drought Datasets 

• Enhanced historic rain gauge data, and updated 5km rainfall grids back to the 

1860s [Met Office]. 

• Historic catchment average daily rainfall series for selected catchments, 1861- 

2015 [Met Office / CEH]. 

• Historic gridded Potential Evapotranspiration (PET), monthly and daily 5km 

grids, 1891-2015, based on temperatures [CEH]. 

• Historic Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), 5km grid + catchments, 1862- 

2015 [CEH]. 

• Historic Standardised Precipitation Evaporation Index (SPEI), 5km grid + 

catchments, 1891-2015 [CEH]. 

• Reconstructed/modelled historic daily river flow series for gauged catchments 

from 3 models, 1891-2015: Grid-to-Grid [CEH] AirGR [CEH], Dynamic TopModel 

[University of Bristol]. 

• Reconstructed / modelled historic monthly gridded river flow and soil moisture 

for UK from the Grid-to-Grid model, 1km grid, 1891-2015 [CEH]. 

• Reconstructed historic groundwater level series for 50 boreholes, 1891-2015 

[BGS]. 

• Historic drought indicators (SSI, SGI) from reconstructed streamflow and 

borehole records, 1891-2015 [CEH, BGS]. 

Near realtime 

droughtrelated 

metrics 

The following drought-related metrics have been focussed on within the Drought 

and Water Scarcity programme, and could become accessible in near-real time 

should this be a requirement from users: 

• Standardised Precipitation Index (SPI), 5km grid + catchments, monthly [CEH] 

– already available via the CEH Drought Portal 

• Standardised Streamflow Index (SSI), selected gauging stations, monthly [CEH] 

• Standardised Groundwater Level Index (SGI), selected boreholes, monthly 

[BGS] 

• Hydro-ecological drought metrics, under development within the projects 

[CEH] 

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Datasets 

Climate change 

projection data 

Click here for the About 

Drought Datasets 

Probabilistic time series based on the Weather at Home (W@H) event set (100 

ensemble members for each time slice) for a baseline period (1974-2004) and 

two future periods (2020-2049 and 2070-2099) under the RCP8.5 high emission 

scenario. 

• Full gridded climate outputs including PET, daily / monthly on ~25km grid 

(University of Oxford) 

• (Dependent on user requirements) Catchment average rainfall, temperature 

and PET for gauged catchments 

• Daily river flow series at gauged catchments: Grid-to-Grid [CEH], Dynamic 

TopModel [University of Bristol] 

• Gridded monthly flows and soil moisture from Grid-to-Grid, 1km grid [CEH] 

• (Dependent on user requirements) Summary grids and maps of this data, e.g. 

change factors for future time periods for key statistics (annual / monthly / seasonal 

flows, etc.) 

Daily grids of hydrological variables (runoff, soil moisture, etc.) under UKCP09 

climate projections for seven representative catchments across the UK for 

three future periods (2020s, 2050s ,2080s), with 100 realisations, modelled with 

Di-CHASM [CEH] 

New Social and Socio-economic datasets 

The multi-disciplinary UK Drought and Water Scarcity programme is also producing a wide range of data outputs 

from research activities in many disciplines. Some of these outputs are listed below, and others will be added as 

they are produced and identified from the component projects. 

Cross-sectoral 

inventory of 

past droughts 

Visit www.aboutdrought.info 

for datasets release updates. 

References to past droughts from a variety of sectors, integrated into a consistent 

format to capture spatial and temporal reporting of drought: 

• References to droughts in the agricultural media. 2000+ entries referring to 

drought within UK agricultural media between 1975 and 2012, including information 

on farm classification. 

• References to droughts in legislation. 500+ entries referring to drought within UK 

legislation between 1976 and 2012, from Hansard debates and other government 

publications. 

• References to droughts in newspapers. Thousands of spatially located entries 

referring to drought within local and national newspapers from 1800 to 2014. 

• References to droughts in oral histories. 1000 entries referring to drought from 

dozens of drought-focussed oral histories from across the UK, from water industry 

experts and members of the public. 

Database of resevoir contruction: dataset of database construction, with capacity 

information, from 1800 to 2000. 

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Organisations who attended the 

About Drought Showcase 

Organisation 

Affinity Water 

AHDB 

Airbus Defence and Space 

Anglian Water 

Artesia Consulting Ltd 

Atkins 

British Geological Survey 

Canal & River Trust 

Cardiff University 

Centre for Ecology & Hydrology 

Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford 

CLA 

Consumer Council for Water 

Coventry University 

Cranfield University 

db+a 

DCWW 

Defra 

DWI 

DWRconsult 

Environment Agency 

Environmental Aesthetic and Associate 

Environmental Change Institute 

ESRC 

Harper Adams University 

HR Wallingford 

Institute for Environmental Analytics 

Jacobs 

Lancaster University 

Loughborough University 

MOSL 

National Centre for Atmospheric Science, University of Reading 

National Infrastructure Commission 

National Trust 

Natural England 

Natural Resources Wales 

NERC 

NFU 

Nottingham Trent University 

Policy Connect 

RSPB 

RWE Generation UK 

Science Communication Unit, University of the West of England 

Scottish Water 

Severn Trent Water 

South West Water 

Organisation 

Southern Water 

Stantec 

Tapajos 

Thames Estuary Partnership 

Thames21 Ltd 

The Aire Rivers Trust 

UK Irrigation Association 

Uniper 

United Utilities 

Universiti Putra Malaysia 

University of Birmingham 

University of Bristol 

University of East Anglia 

University of Exeter 

University of Oxford 

University of the West of England, Bristol 

Wallingford HydroSolutions Ltd. 

Water Loss Research & Analysis Ltd, and LEAKSSuite website 

Waterwise 

Weather Logistics Ltd 

Yorkshire Water 

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About Drought Showcase 

Please stay in touch 

for future events & workshops 

Sign up for the About Drought newsletter at www.AboutDrought.info 

Follow @AboutDrought on Twitter 

Share the post-event Showcase content and read our latest news at www.AboutDrought.info 

Follow the projects: 

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