Catchment Planning and Management Knowledge Exchange Fellowship (open call)

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Healthy water bodies provide a multitude of services that we as humans are dependent on. However, ensuring the sustainable management of these presents numerous challenges. This is because water bodies are affected by all the activities that occur on the land that drains into them, as well as by actions in abstracting, using and returning water. As a result numerous studies have identified that only coordinated action at the catchment level and involving all stakeholders responsible can ensure the protection and improvement of the water environment. In reflection of the need for more locally focused decision making at the catchment level the Government introduced the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) to water management in 2013. This led to 100 Catchment Partnerships of stakeholders being established across the country. These partnerships provide an opportunity to engage local communities, charities and business in environmental planning. However, they will require access to information about the current and future risks to their catchments if they are to make well informed and sustainable decisions. They also require support in developing the tools and methods that can be used to plan at the catchment level. NERC's extensive research portfolio in the areas of water and land management presents an opportunity to provide this, demonstrating the impact that research can have not only in assisting with the delivery of public policy but also in improving public discourse and awareness of environmental problems. The Catchment Planning and Management Knowledge Exchange Fellowship will investigate where there are data sets, monitoring results and information from NERC funded research programmes related to catchment management and translate these making them available and accessible for use in local decision making. The Fellow will also work with the Catchment Partnerships, support groups and national decision makers to investigate how to make data available and to demonstrate how they can be used to aid local understanding and planning. Ensuring that local decision makers have awareness of the services that the ecosystems within their catchments deliver will be essential if these are to be considered in planning that enables multiple benefits to be achieved. Therefore, the KE fellow will work to ensure that outputs from NERC's research programmes investigating ecosystem services, such as the Valuing Nature Programme and the Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services Sustainability Programme, inform the development of the use of ecosystem services within catchment planning. This will improve understanding of how different ecosystem services can be valued and compared as well as understanding where the trade-offs between different ecosystem services may occur in order to facilitate planning. The KE Fellow will also work across NERC's research programmes and innovation programmes to provide Catchment Partnerships with access to outputs that communicate the importance of sustainable water management. This will help to ensure that a diverse range of individuals, groups and sectors are engaged in catchment planning. This will include NERC research into the links between the environment and human health and well-being as well as natural hazards, risks and infrastructure. This will assist with ensuring the involvement of a diverse range of individuals, groups and sectors such as health care professionals, social services, community groups, local authorities, spatial planners, transport providers, businesses etc. in order to support local environmental improvements. Following on from demonstrating the importance of engagement with catchment planning the KE fellowship will work to identify how NERC research can support the attraction of funding for environmental improvements identified at the local level, thus helping to ensure long term financial support for catchment management.