Workshop on Agriculture, Water Management and Climate Change

We have returned from a very productive international workshop in Bath with 70 leading on areas of science, management and policy ranging from sociology to water resources. We worked hard to stick to a workshop style meeting; the picture above is from a rich picturing activity led by Kevin Collins from the Open University. Summaries from the activities will be available shortly. I just hope that the participants remember more than just the delights of the Roman Baths!

Defra announces: Ecosystem Approach-Action Plan

Defra have recently sponsored several research projects looking into how an Ecosystem Approach could be followed in the UK. They have just released 'Securing a healthy natural environment' report that sets out how Defra (and the broader UK Government) will adopt an Ecosystem Approach for a more holistic, integrated and adaptive approach to natural resource management. A key aspect is assessing the state of the evidence base and improving the two way communication between researchers and policy makers- key objectives of IWAM!

Open University, Open Systems Research Group work on Integrated Catchment Managing

Kevin Collins (OU) and his colleagues have been working with the catchment science team at the Environment Agency over the past 2 years. At CAIWA2007, Kevin gave a fascinating presentation on 'Trusting emergence: Some experiences of learning about integrated catchment science with the Environment Agency of England and Wales '. This paper set out to explore whether current scientific practices and the resultant scientific explanations are able to meet the demands of doing effective integrated, adaptive water management, using some learning arising from co-research work with the EA in England and Wales.

CAIWA 2007 International Conference on Adaptive & Integrated Water Management

This conference was held last week in Basel, Switzerland and aimed to bring together scientists from academia, industry, and policy making/government to analyse progress, to explore new research directions and highlight policy implications of scientific findings. A number of the offered papers are available and hopefully the keynote presentations (some of which were excellent e.g. Carl Folke) will also become available.