What is the Catchment Based Approach?
From the source of our rivers to the sea, across our towns, cities, countryside and coasts – a healthy water environment is essential to all of us. It provides us with the water we need to live and to run our businesses efficiently. It reduces the risk to our homes and livelihoods of flooding. A healthy water environment means better places to live, where people and wildlife flourish. In the past, management of the water environment has fallen to Government, to private companies and to landowners, often operating in isolation.
The Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) embeds collaborative working at a river catchment scale, delivering a range of environmental, social and economic benefits and protecting our precious water environments for the benefit of us all.
Collaborative Water Management
Whilst top-down regulation does have a key role to play within land and water management, it alone cannot address the breadth and complexity of the issues or fully realise the range of environmental, societal and economic benefits that can be achieved. To do so requires a collaborative approach that engages all sectors of society, including businesses, civil society and local authorities – this is the purpose of catchment partnerships.
Catchment Management Plan
Our catchment management plan and its associated documents set out a framework for collaborative working to deliver integrated catchment management and continues to develop as the catchment partnership grows.
Integrated catchment management can provide multiple benefits for all the partner organisations and the local community, including reducing flood risk whilst also cleaning up pollution, protecting drinking water resources, improving biodiversity and improving the health and recreation for local communities. Planning integrated, collaborative actions will be more cost-beneficial than projects tackling single issues, as the partners can share the cost burden, whilst still meeting their own objectives
A Natural Capital Approach
Most of us are familiar with the concept of physical assets such as buildings or roads and financial assets such as stocks and shares. Natural capital extends this concept by describing the natural environment as a stock of assets. The concept of assets reminds us to maintain and restore where necessary, to ensure a sustainable balance between different asset types and to try to increase the value of our capital or ‘natural wealth’. Our catchment plan, based on the principle of adaptive management, allows partners to agree on the best course of action to maximise the natural capital of our catchments and usually consists of five key components.
1. Build partnerships and set out the vision
Building partnerships takes time and a lot of effort. It is the foundation for collaboration and there is no short cut. Trust built here will pay dividends later when partners write joint funding bids and the local community is supportive. CaBA partnerships use engagement tools and techniques to bring stakeholders together, set a vision and agree priorities.
2. Use data and evidence to develop the catchment plan
CaBA partnerships make use of the best available data and evidence to develop a shared understanding of the issues and to target their actions and funds where they will have multiple benefits for all the partners. For example, a well-targeted habitat restoration project can benefit wildlife, but can also reduce flood risk downstream, improve drinking water quality and provide social, health and recreation benefits to local people.
3. Deliver – implement catchment management interventions
We are an effective partnership, with an evidence-based plan, and in a great position to deliver ambitious projects which provide multiple benefits to all partners. There are two highly effective approaches which are evolving across our partnership:
- A database of ‘shovel ready’ projects. These are projects which the partnership has agreed will contribute to the vision. All that is required is some funding! These projects can be delivered opportunistically as funding becomes available.
- Flagship projects. These are major projects which will make a step change to the natural, social, physical & financial and human capital of your catchment. They are designed to capture the imagination and enthusiasm of the people who live and work in the catchment.
4. Monitor – measure outcomes and adjust delivery
Monitoring outcomes is a critical part of the catchment planning process. This is how we find out whether the actions and interventions have worked and then adjust future plans accordingly. Environmental monitoring needs careful planning to ensure that the appropriate criteria are measured.
The picture that is emerging across the country highlights two key areas to focus on:
- Partnerships who record the ‘natural assets’ that they are creating will be able to value and maintain the improvements they have made.
- Does the project improve the catchment in the way we thought or wanted it to? This is not easy to do. It is expensive, takes a long time and there is rarely any specific budget for it. However, the value of this monitoring is enormous if it is locally commissioned, conducted and analysed. Local universities and citizen science have a key role in making monitoring a central part of CaBAs work and complimenting the regulatory monitoring that is done by government agencies.
5. Improve the plan & shared the learning
The Catchment Bases Approach provides a unique opportunity to improve catchment plans through peer to peer learning and mentoring. Supported by the national Catchment Based Approach resources such as discussion forums, conferences and mentoring programme our partnership can liaise and share learning across the county to build our knowledge and capacity.
To find out more about the Catchment Based Approach visit their website at https://catchmentbasedapproach.org/