Rethinking Water Planning

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Why is the project relevant to you?

This project has highlighted the statutory water plans as core to these approaches delivery, however it is important to note that these processes and investments only form part of the activity ongoing within the catchment areas. A full ambition of integration would include all of the investment from all environmental schemes, however currently the complexity of full integration is inhibitive. The approaches trialled in this project relied heavily of local practitioners, particularly around understanding the connections between the water systems, supporting us in understanding the specific catchment characteristics.

Key messages for Practitioners

The participatory systems mapping element of the case studies shows the complexity of the water system. It also begins to explore how decisions on housing, growth, development location, and associated infrastructure are intrinsically linked to our water environment.The participatory systems mapping element of the case studies shows the complexity of the water system and provided a very useful way of working with stakeholders to understand complex systems.

One of the challenges identified thorough the project was the work that still needs to be done across the water industry and with other plan makers to make the evidence bases and optioneering consistent and shareable.

The project had to find the balance between trying to cover multiple aspects of water, over a large area, and the resource demands that come with different levels of detail. We accepted that this type of multi criteria review and option selection would not have as much confidence as the sector specific modelling that is undertaken. Therefore finding the right place to input these approaches into the process, (likely in an iterative way) with the detailed optioneering work is critical.