Yorkshire iCASP - Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme

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The Yorkshire Ouse basin, which encompasses the cities of Leeds, York and Sheffield as well as the rivers Aire, Calder, Derwent, Don, Swale, Wharfe, Ure and Nidd is home to 6.7% of the UK population, 30% of the Northern Powerhouse region and includes 10 metropolitan boroughs. The region includes a variety of different environments, from large urban areas to lowland agriculture and sparsely populated uplands including National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. As such, it is a perfect location to instigate a programme of work which uses existing NERC-funded science to identify, develop, test and improve integrated solutions on a range of environmental impacts. This encompasses mitigation of drought and flood risk through improved connectivity between weather forecasting, land management and water resource management; improvements in water quality for both human water supply and rivers/other water bodies; and better management of soils for improved regional food security and carbon storage (in woodlands and peatland). By integrating these aspects of weather, land and water, it will enable better plans to be made for the region that allow for sustainable development as the population grows whilst protecting the valuable natural environment. Ultimately, by creating a region that is better able to deal with a more variable climate, it will become an area that attracts investment as people and their businesses opt to live and work in an area that has adapted to the severe effects of environmental change, with improved quality of life. Many major global companies already have their water headquarters or global environmental head offices in the region together with a range of SMEs and large businesses whose interests include catchment management. As such, there is considerable momentum behind the Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme - Yorkshire iCASP - which seeks to deliver economic and social impacts to the region.Yorkshire iCASP will capitalise on existing NERC-funded science to develop tools, strategies, plans and policies to promote hazard resilience, mitigation of extreme events (floods and droughts), develop flood forecasting capability, improve water quality, enhance soils and farm practice and develop a joined-up approach for land and water management. iCASP has been co-created by partners drawn from local authorities, government agencies, major infrastructure/utility owners, private sector service providers, academic institutions, and third sector organisations who will work together to produce and deliver a work programme that seeks to enhance the economic and societal status of the region. Outcomes from the collaboration will deliver tools and techniques with applicability outside the region, creating services and products which can be used around the world to further benefit the region and the UK economy more generally. Examples of the projects that have been discussed in the work programme include development of green financing enterprises; development of new tools to better link flood forecasting with impacts on rivers and different land management practices; decision-support tools that allow different area-specific flood/drought management scenarios to be evaluated; and raw water management approaches that reduce the cost of water treatment. All will have different, and often multifaceted, impacts on society and the wider environment so another important aspect of iCASP is the documentation and evaluation of the projects implemented as part of the work programme, measuring the changes that they contribute to the regional, and national, economy as well as the growth of iCASP partners through leveraged investment, job creation and wider societal benefits.