supporting work on the ground through local projects
Water for Tomorrow (WfT) is supporting four local projects across East Anglia: Wensum (Broadland catchment), Lark and Granta (CamEO catchment), and East Suffolk (East Suffolk catchment). Each local project is supporting and participating in the co-design of our innovative participatory planning approach, and with the design and implementation of new management systems.
Broadland: The Wensum project focusses on the feasibility to implement and scale up a monitoring programme for the whole river catchment. Citizen scientists will work to monitor river flows and water quality alongside the existing institutional monitoring taking place. Research into equipment and best practice for a citizen science approach to monitoring are ongoing, developing tests and trials for equipment and monitoring methods. Once the feasibility study has been completed, pilot monitoring schemes will start with a view to scaling up citizen science monitoring across the whole catchment.
Cam & Ely Ouse : The first of two projects in this catchment, the Granta project, brings together various stakeholders including landowners, water utilities, e-NGO’s, and the local authority to build a ‘catchment water balance model and engagement plan’. The second project, the Lark project, is developing a shared understanding and improved management of the catchment’s water resources. The implementation of this approach will be supported by applied research, led by Cranfield University. This will supply the robust evidence required to underpin future investment in the water sharing approach. Both projects are establishing more formal abstractors groups to increase engagement, develop a shared understanding and shared solutions to water resources management strategies.
East Suffolk : This project focuses on the delivery of multi-stakeholder workshops to further understanding across the different sectors of the water deficit locally. It is working with abstractors groups, landowners, regulators, and other interested parties, to identify the most appropriate regulatory, water management and environmental tools and measures to help move the catchment towards sustainable abstraction.