Multi-Scale Water Resources Planning in England & Wales

England faces serious risks of water shortages, especially in the drier south and east. Climate change, an increasing population and the need to protect the environment bring further challenges to an already strained system. The National Infrastructure Commission is calling for £21 billion of investment over the next 30 years to avoid £40 billion in emergency response costs.

As part of the new National Framework for Water Resources, this project will look at the best options for meeting this challenge within the Water Resources West region by optimal use of water abstractions, storage and transfers. The project requires engagement potentially across diverse topics such as climate change, aquatic ecology, fluvial geomorphology, surface and groundwater hydrology, water infrastructure engineering and economics. It will also require the application of new multi-scale optimisation methods to water resources planning and an evaluation of such an approach in a real-world application.

The task is challenging as the Water Resources West region crosses a national border (with Wales) as well as catchment boundaries. New multi-criteria decision-making methods are therefore sought to satisfy the requirements at scales from individual catchments through water resource zones to multi-national, and across a wide range of sectors. There are currently no established industry methods for this in the UK.

Part of this project will be to work alongside Water Resources West and its members to evaluate the approach used. It will also involve a review of the literature to identify different methods for multi-scale decision making, conduct trials of these for water resources planning and potentially develop new methods which may utilise fuzzy logic, compromise programming, game theory or stochastic systems modelling.

The primary EPSRC research area relevant to this project is Water Engineering, in particular R2: to ensure a reliable infrastructure; and R5: to build new tools to adapt to climate change, using whole-systems approaches to promote resilience.

Objectives and research questions:

* How can different criteria be effectively assessed jointly under changing regimes of regulation, demographics and climate?
* How can major water resource zones (regional and potentially national) be adequately simulated and analysed accounting for spatial dependencies in rainfall (droughts) and the effect of inter-basin transfers?
* How can the uncertainty of future climate (and regulatory regimes) be accounted for in decision making for large schemes using probabilistic methods?
* What level of detail is required to adequately represent important ecosystem processes within resource systems?
* Regarding inter-basin transfers, how can the trade-offs between different regions be understood whilst establishing optimal outcomes at the zonal scale?

Graduates from the WRIC programme will produce new knowledge across the disciplinary landscape and graduate to occupy professional roles of influence and authority which require a thorough understanding of the pathways by which knowledge and technology are adopted and put to socially significant use. The people and knowledge delivered through the CDT will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the nation's >£5bn annual spend on water and water related infrastructure (OFWAT, 2017), improving its resilience and securing its value for society for generations to come. With ambitions to nurture domain experts who can flourish at the interfaces of scientific disciplines and economic/industry sectors, the impact imperative is a significant but stimulating challenge for the WRIC CDT. Our impact strategy seeks to; (i) ensure rapid dissemination of scientific insights, (ii) maximise awareness and uptake of research sponsored through the CDT, and (iii) improve professional and lay understandings of the water infrastructure challenges facing society and the science behind candidate solutions. This strategy has been developed with project and Centre stakeholders so as to leverage additional resources, and maximise impact.
Improving the resilience of water infrastructure systems will be of benefit to a wide range of stakeholders. Given the CDT's bold intention to tackle knowledge gaps at the interfaces between disciplines and problems, new scientific understandings generated through WRIC will be of value to the knowledge users in the public sector (local authorities, regulators) and private sector (utilities, consultancies, technology providers), ultimately benefiting both lives and livelihoods across the UK and beyond. The UK economy will benefit from robust and resilient water infrastructure, in-line with the UK Government's Industrial Strategy for cleaner economic growth, the efficient use of resources, and building a regenerative circular economy. In the next Price Review PR19 (2020-25), water companies will be financially rewarded for implementing enhanced system resilience and innovation. Research outputs from WRIC will enable water companies to be able to meet these demands, alongside ambitious industry targets for zero water and wastewater quality failures, demand reduction and chemical recycling (OFWAT, 2017; UKWIR, 2017). These developments will facilitate inward international investment, development of new technology providers and supply chains, and opportunities for exporting intellectual property and know-how worldwide, further benefiting the UK economy. Project partners, including Thames Water, Severn Trent Water, Atkins, Stantec, Datatecnics also benefit from access to high quality graduates and facilities. Furthermore, regulatory agencies (Environment Agency, Drinking Water Inspectorate) and the European Commission will see benefits from improved compliance to regulations and sustainability agendas (Water Framework Directive 2008/32/EC and Drinking Water Directive 2017/0332(COD)).
The CDT programme will benefit the UK Collaboratorium for Research on Infrastructure and Cities (UKCRIC) government investments (£138M). Sheffield, Cranfield and Newcastle Universities have all received capital grants through UKCRIC to fund industrial scale test facility and observatory facilities to form an Urban Water Hub. The CDT will supply the resources to use and maximise the benefits and outputs from these facilities. Cooperation with other UKCRIC CDTs will help students better understand contemporary challenges for infrastructure and cities will catalyse horizontal innovation transfer and elevate the transformative potential of WRIC graduates.