About Drought Handbook: Outputs & Impacts

A Community of Practice
Water Resources South East
‘About Drought has brought policy-makers, scientists and academics
together and that is becoming more important because the complexities
and uncertainties in the science are fundamental to making the best policy
decisions, especially with climate change playing an increasing role’
Trevor Bishop, Director, Water Resources South East & MD of H2Outcomes
The person in the driving seat of the UK’s response
to the 2012 drought was Trevor Bishop, then Deputy
Director of Water Resources at the Environment
Agency and Ofwat’s Director for Strategy & Planning
during the 2018 hot dry summer of peak demand.
With a water crisis looming in 2012, he was appointed to
co-ordinate the first multi sector cross cutting National
Drought Group, reporting directly to the Government,
and bringing together companies, regulators and
government departments, representatives of agriculture
and power groups and chaired by the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Caroline
Spelman.
Trevor recalls: “In a worst-case scenario we were
within 160 days of running out of water for some parts
of London, with the 2012 Olympics on the horizon,
20 million people were on water restrictions and so
were several thousand businesses for which water was
critical.”
Many parts of England had experienced the driest 18
months for more than 100 years and the crisis triggered
the Research Councils’ £12m investment in the UK’s
Drought & Water Scarcity Research Programme and
several projects, now collectively known as About
Drought.
He says: “About Drought is helping us to understand
what the evidence is really saying so people like me can
get behind the science. The events About Drought has
held are the best I have seen at doing that.”
One of the most complex messages to translate from
academia to policy and decision-makers is uncertainty.
As a scientist by background, Trevor says: “Uncertainty
is absolutely key, confidence in evidence data and About
Drought’s better and more timely presentation of data
is helping decision-makers to better manage uncertainty.
8
“WE WERE WITHIN 160 DAYS OF
RUNNING OUT OF WATER WITH THE
2012 OLYMPICS ON THE HORIZON”