About Drought Handbook: Outputs & Impacts

Credit: David Throup/EA
Informing the Water Industry
Environment Agency
“About Drought has informed the water industry, now we need some sort of
mechanism to identify the most useful outputs from strategic to operational
products. We must not let those fall through a crack now that About Drought
has finished.”
Paul Crockett, Principal Officer, National Water Resources Planning Framework, Environment Agency
“About Drought has helped
generate a step change in thinking
around what is possible and what
can be done, and over the next 10
years or so we will be making better
decisions, using better tools because
of it,” says Paul Crockett who is
leading the modelling work on the
National Water Resources Planning
Framework for the Environment
Agency.
Yet Paul, who has worked closely
with the MaRIUS project and About
Drought (ENDOWS), believes
there is still more to be done in
encouraging the water industry to
catch up with the latest outcomes
of the programme’s data and tools.
About Drought has supported the
water industry in both strategic
planning and real-time decisionmaking
during a time when it has
come under pressure to collaborate
across water company boundaries
on regional forward planning, as well
as approaches to dealing with issues
as they arise with a greater level of
accountability.
MaRIUS and ENDOWS have
held a series of workshop events
specifically for the industry, working
alongside key stakeholders to match
its research to their needs.
With the National Water Resources
Planning Framework driving water
companies to work together to build
resilience into water management
with clear, joined-up direction from
Government departments, agencies
and water regulators, the industry
is now more ready to be receptive,
Paul feels.
He says: “There are a lot of great
products from MaRIUS and About
Drought but the water industry –
the customer, if you like – is only
just seeing the potential.”
Historic Droughts’ work in
reconstructing reliable rainfall,
river flow and groundwater data
back to 1890, as well as providing
standardised drought indices
has been important in putting
events into context, improving
the industry’s understanding of
statistics, the latest methodologies
and stakeholder needs. There is still
more to be done in migrating data
from the academic models to those
the water companies use.
The water resource model
developed by MaRIUS is being
adopted for use by Paul’s team, to
help the National Water Resources
Planning Framework assess the
potential effects of different types
of drought and climate change
impacts at a national scale, and test
7
management strategies.
Paul’s concern is that with the
impacts of climate change starting
to be felt on the reliability of water
availability, it is the wrong time to
bring About Drought to an end.
He says: “It’s so important to have
About Drought following on from
the original research projects; it
demonstrated what is possible, the
better knowledge and insight we
can get from the information that
decisions will be based on in the
future. The team really helped to
educate the industry rather than
just educating other academics.
“We need to look at the tools
we can use to take it even further
forward now that the industry is
starting to buy into it more.
“About Drought has informed the
water industry, now we need some
sort of mechanism to identify the
most useful outputs from strategic
to operational products. We must
not let those fall through a crack
now that About Drought has
finished.
“About Drought is to be applauded
for what it has done but it needs
more time and resources if it is to
maximise the outcome for UK plc
of all this research.”
Interview by Sally Stevens