The Environment Agency has published research on how catchments respond to droughts, in both current and future climates.
The work used a stress testing approach in two contrasting catchments, the Warwickshire Avon and Norfolk Bure, to explore how different receptors (water user or aspect of the environment) respond as droughts intensify and persist. The receptor metrics were the number of days below a certain river flow, indicators of drought recovery and the availability of water for spray irrigation.
The research also evaluated the effectiveness of different interventions under different types of drought stress: abstraction licence changes, provision of winter storage and temporarily reducing or suspending abstractions.
According to the document: “The stress testing approach could be useful when considering alternative operational (drought management) and strategic (longer-term) interventions as part of multi-sectoral catchment and regional scale planning. Such a vulnerability led approach, considering a variety of perspectives, could encourage stakeholders to adopt a broad, common understanding of vulnerabilities and work towards a consensus on future planning. An iterative approach could be used to identify how interventions could be combined, to maximise benefits and/or mitigate impacts, and under which conditions they become effective in increasing catchment resilience to a changing climate.”
Comments