Context
Water resources planning can feel like a complex planning process that doesn’t support effective local engagement in decision making. To date most of the planning has been carried out by water companies and groups at a regional level and work is needed to ensure this is translatable to natural catchments and to other sectors of water users. If WRE can help to empower and enable local organisations to engage, this will better support the development of collaborative catchment solutions. In future we hope that catchment partnerships in East Anglia will be able to support catchment decisions that best balance local needs alongside environmental risks and drivers, and have more influence over longer-term investment decisions.
Aims
The BCP and WRE wish to:
- support the upskilling of catchment partnerships in water resources planning;
- develop a training package template that all catchment partnerships could use and refine;
- pilot the training package with the BCP;
- use feedback from East Anglian catchment partnerships to improve the training package template (including beyond June 2024);
- promote the template, with the Rivers Trust, to all other catchment partnerships.
Scope
The national template being prepared for CaBA will provide an introduction to water resources planning and why it is needed; the basics of water resources management and regional plans; and the context of catchment-scale and multi-sector planning including agriculture, environment habitats and other large water-dependent sectors.
The Broadland Catchment Partnership’s sessions were held online (1 session) and in-person (2 sessions) and covered:
- Water Resources Management Plans
- WRE’s Regional Plan
- Catchment scale and multi sector water resources planning
- An introduction to water resources planning at a more local scale
- Agricultural water resources planning, local resource options, arable land management
- Environmental habitats and considerations
- What is the ‘Environmental Destination’
- What does the future hold?
Funders
WRE and the Broads Authority would like to thank The Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency for supporting this initiative via the CaBA Water Resources Collaboration and Engagement Fund.
Useful Links
Water Resources Training Outputs
- Water Resources Training Template (for Catchment Partnerships to adapt to suit their training need)
- The following presentations were prepared for the Broadland Catchment Partnership, based on local information:
• Agricultural water resources planning – Broadland Agricultural Water Abstractors Group
• Arable land management and water resources – National Farmers Union
• The National Water Resources Framework 2 and agricultural resources options – WRE
• Water resources needs for the environment – Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
• Broads National Park water resource projects – Broads Authority
• Environmental Destination – Anglian Water and Environmental Destination – Water Resources East - A strategic webinar was also held and opened up to a wider group. The webinar covered:
• Water Resource Management Plans (WRMP) – Essex and Suffolk and Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP) – Anglian Water
• Water Resources East Regional Plan
• Catchment scale Water Resources Planning
• Upper and Bedford Ouse Water Resource Challenges
Please note
The information presented in these slide packs are accurate as of April 2024 and may be subject to change. For further information about the project please contact Hannah Norman, hannah.norman@broads-authority.gov.uk
Watch the presentations from the training webinar below