Specialist environmental practice, Cascade Consulting, has been commissioned by the Environment Agency to produce a new user manual allowing practitioners to assess the likely resilience of river basin management measures to future climate conditions, providing quick and easy access to the climate resilience score of river basin management measures.
The Climate Resilience of Catchment Methods Guidance Tool has combined literature review, expert elucidation and modelling to evaluate the robustness of the range of rural catchment management methods available, in order to achieve the objectives of the Water Framework Directive at the catchment scale.
Available to download for free from Cascade’s website and with regular updates available, the tool will enable an understanding of how resilient measures are to changes in temperature and rainfall due to climate change, which measures are most likely to reduce the more harmful effects of climate change on the hydrological cycle, and the necessary implementation of appropriate adaptation responses within catchment management.
“A large range of catchment methods have been implemented or are being considered in river basin management in order to help us achieve the objectives of the Water Framework Directive. As yet we have a poor understanding of how use of these methods will enhance or inhibit our resilience to changes in temperature and rainfall seasonality and intensity due to global warming,
so we are delighted that we now have this guidance tool in place.” said Commercial Director, Peter
Holloway.
Dr Julian Wright from the Environment Agency said: “Climate change is projected to lead to major changes in annual and seasonal precipitation and river flow, and provide a significant additional challenge to the achievement of WFD objectives. This tool is designed to help those working to pick measures to deal with current pressures on our water bodies ensure that these measures will be fit for the future too.”
