CIWEM information resources on water and climate change

CIWEM have released two introductory reports on water and climate change (www.ciwem.org/resources).

Catchment Management: Land-use and Water

Introduces catchment management, the pressures faced by land and water and highlights the need for an integrated approach to catchment management. Surveys show that integration between sectors e.g. agriculture and water resources, between science and management at different scales and between organisations to be a problem. Solutions they suggest include: making people aware of the benefits of integrated working, achnowleding and moving on from a 'silo mentality', commision more research on what works, spread best practice, improve our understanding of scale issues, set up more joint projects and networks and to move away from ad-hoc integration/communication. They conclude that there is widespread support for an integrated approach to land and water management and that key drivers e.g. agri-environment policies are helping to bring stakeholders together to solve local and larger scale problems.

Climate Change Impacts

An introductory document that sets out the main impacts that climate change will have on UK agriculture, biodiversity, energy, human health, poverty and water resources. The report authors conclude that since climate change will lead to greater uncertainty in climate prediction, this presents more of a threat than an opportunity.