The document summarizes a conference for the Rivers Trust. It discusses the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA), which brings together local stakeholders to identify solutions to water management issues. CaBA has led to increased funding and more integrated, collaborative work. The National CaBA Support Group helps partnerships leverage funding and support catchment plans. CaBA tools like citizen science and online mapping are discussed. CaBA is seen as an effective way to achieve multiple benefits like water quality, flood risk management, and community well-being. Governance of CaBA emphasizes collaboration, social learning, and a systems approach.

1. #RTConf16
Chaired by Dr Laurence Couldrick

2. #RTConf16
CEO, The Rivers Trust

3. The RiversTrust – Autumn Conference 2016
‘the umbrella body of the rivers trust movement’
www.theriverstrust.org
www.catchmentbasedapproach.org
Global thinking – local action
Catchment Based Approach
(CaBA)
&
National Support Group (NSG)
Arlin Rickard – Chief Executive

4. CaBA began life as a Defra Policy Framework
initiative that arose, like the Natural Capital
Committee from the Natural EnvironmentWhite
Paper “The Natural Choice” in 2011.
CaBA - Background

5. Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)
• Catchment partnerships
established in all 108WFD
catchments across England
www.catchmentbasedapproach.org

6. National CaBA Support Group (NSG)

7. CollaborativeWorking
• Environmental NGO’s
• Government & Agencies (Defra, EA, Natural England)
• Water Companies
• Landowner & Farmer Representative Groups
• Academia
• LocalAuthorities
• Local Businesses
• Local Communities etc

8. • Catalyst to bring a range of local stakeholders
together
• Consensus – often between stakeholders with
conflicting views
• Identify solutions to issues that are not easily
addressed through direct regulation
• Co-delivery of action on the ground
• Leveraging of funds from diverse sources
• Getting more for less
CaBA Benefits

9. Multiple Benefits (synergies)
• Improved Water Quality and Quantity
• Flood Risk Management
• Biodiversity
• Climate Resilience
• Green (& Blue) Spaces
• Community Health and Well-being
• Business Growth
• Urban re-generation

10. Community Engagement is key to CaBA
success!

11. CaBA Evaluation
• Leveraged funding 4:1 relative to initial Defra investment
• Increased scale, depth and integration of engagement
across water management issues
• More cost effective delivery
• Captures local knowledge and expertise; greater
community engagement
• Driving a more holistic and integrated approach
• Multiple benefits realised through collaborative working

12. NSG Collaborative Action Plan
• Support Partnerships to leverage increased funding (from increasingly
diverse sources) to deliver benefits for the environment, people and
local economies
• Continue to build capacity and expertise
• ChampionCaBA to key sectors and stakeholders (water industry, LEP’s,
LocalAuthorities,Agricultural sector)
• Support partnerships in developing high quality catchment plans
• Re-energise CaBA Partnership involvement in River Basin Liaison Panels
• Continue to drive open data
• Enhance two-way flow of information between the NSG and
Partnerships, including case studies that capture all the benefits of
collaborative delivery

13. Catchment Plans
• Local stakeholders collectively
prioritise action
• Catchment Plans can take on
different but equally effective forms
• Plans capture quantitative evidence
and data
• Can incorporate a series of project
proposals
• Rationale, Outcomes,Timelines,
Roles & Responsibilities
• Build confidence in the
partnerships as a delivery partner

14. CaBA
• Terms of Reference:
work collaboratively to
support Catchment
Partnerships and to
champion the
Catchment Based
Approach
• Working Groups
• Catchment
Partnership Fund
Projects
• Communications

15. CaBA Working Groups
© Connect Right
© Environment
Agency
CDUG Urban Agriculture Forestry
Funding Fisheries Biodiversity TraC Waters

16. CaBA Engagement – Urban Workshops
• 5 cities; 300+ delegates drawn
from Catchment Partnerships,
Local Authorities, Water
Companies etc.
• Championing benefits of
collaborative working
• Growing number of LA’s working in
partnership
• ‘Getting more for less’
• Catchment Partnerships can
influence local policies and plans
• ‘Speak the right language’
• Growing understanding of the
importance of green-blue spaces

17. Pollution Assessment - Volunteer Scheme

18. Urban Pollution
• Misconnections; CaBA Partnerships, LA’s &Water
Companies
• Diffuse Urban Runoff
• Category 3 Pollution Monitoring
• Community Engagement and Awareness Raising

19. Ordnance Survey Mastermap © Crown copyright and database right 2014
‘DOWNSTREAM DEFENDERS’
Bespoke design on 3 surface water drains
R.Wandle, Carshalton, S.London
Hydrodynamic Vortex Chambers

22. CaBA Support Tools
Catchment Data User
Group

23. CaBA Data Package

24. www.catchmentbasedapproach.org

26. CaBA Mailing List &
Newsletter

27. CaBA
Capacity Building
Technical Support &
Mentoring

28. Catchments
which have
had direct
support or
mentoring
2013-16

29. Case Study: Soar Catchment
Developing shared objectives –
LLFA, LEP
Data and evidence review
Community engagement
(Citizen Science)
Agricultural supply chain
mapping & engagement
Information sharing platforms

30. Case Study: Ribble Catchment
Evidence Sharing Platform trial
Led to bathing water project
funded jointly UU/EA/LA
Now co-developing tools for
HLF Ribble Life Together
ArcGIS Online training
Ribble RT in turn now
supporting NW CaBA

31. 2016-17 Freshwater Watch & CaBA
Developments
Customise and adapt citizen science platform for CaBA
Local CaBA branding and putting FWW volunteers in
touch with local CaBA partnership
Targeted water quality monitoring campaigns - eg. wet
weather, outfall monitoring, etc.
Adapt platform to accept additional water quality
monitoring parameters and different types of
monitoring kit
Collecting additional data and evidence - e.g. litter,
sewage overflows
Guidance and training to map and interpret results
and combine with government monitoring data
National and regional events to inspire and motivate
volunteers and coordinators

32. 2016-17 Online Mapping Developments
Templates to enable CaBA partnerships to
publish their catchment plans as interactive
maps
Training, webinars and tech support to help CaBA
partnerships make the most of online and
mobile data sharing technology
Using Story Maps to engage different audiences
and stakeholders around catchment
management
Combining government Open Data with local
data to create a weight of evidence for
collaborative action
Using mobile data capture technology to fill
evidence gaps and report issues
GIS-based education resources linked to the
national curriculum to link schools with local
CaBA partnerships

33. CaBA Partnerships provide an ideal vehicle to mobilise debate
between flood threatened communities and those
organisations (& individuals) able to enact mitigation action
Managing Flood Risk at the Catchment Scale

34. Catchment scale ~400km² NFM targeting maps ,
milking understanding from existing data and
models.
Co-design model output with Catchment
Management / CaBA Groups (Cumbria) to
sense check opportunities for NFM.
Re-run the modelling to get strategic maps,
showing the potential contribution of NFM
across whole catchment.
Sub-catchment scale ~ 100km² ‘management
model for catchments where NFM can make a
significant contribution. Part of an adaptive
management approach
Concrete actions, delivering trial interventions
and building up momentum for a catchment
based component of flood risk management
Natural Flood Management

35. Re-purposing EA
flood models to
design
interventions that
deliver multiple
benefits & re-
assure
communities at
risk of flooding.
Natural Flood Management

36. Re-purposing EA flood models to design
interventions that deliver multiple
benefits & re-assure communities at risk
of flooding.
Deliver improvements in the catchment
which reduce flood risk and improve fish
passage.
Then work with the community to
adaptively manage the change to their
local river.
Using a mixture of hard numbers
(modelling) and soft skills (engagement
and community ‘muddy boots’ days)
Natural Flood Management

37. Your Fisheries & CaBA
An Initiative for Planning and
Delivering Fisheries Management in
Partnership, at a Catchment Scale

38. Your Fisheries - will contribute to EA:
Salmon 5 Point Approach

39. Paid Ecosystem Services –
key elements:
• CatchmentApproach with 1st, 2nd, 3rd sector
consensus
• Catchment Plan with coordinated delivery
• Key central role of ‘ethical broker’
• Funding mechanism(s) to allow a market to
develop for trade to take place…

40. CaBA & Natural Capital
Committee
• Began like CaBA with Natural EnvironmentWhite Paper
• Chairman – Prof Dieter Helm
• The Government has reappointed the Natural Capital
Committee for a second term, for the duration of the
current Parliament (to 2020). A new set of members
have been appointed under the chairmanship of Dieter
Helm
• The new members are: Paul Leinster, Colin Mayer, Diane
Coyle, Georgina Mace and Prof Ian Bateman

41. CaBA & Defra 25Year Environment Plan
• 4 Pillars
Modern
Integrated
Local
 Open
• 14 Workshops – one per EA area
• To be Informed by “Pioneer Projects”

42. The RiversTrust
‘the umbrella body of the rivers trust movement’
www.theriverstrust.org
www.catchmentbasedapproach.
org
http://waterlife.org.uk
ThankYou!

43. #RTConf16
Manager, Strategic Catchment Partnerships
Environment Agency

44. Damian Crilly
Manager, Strategic Catchment Partnerships
Collaborative Working
Strategic Catchment Partnerships

45. Source: Global Integration
Land Water Ecology
Growth
Development
Regeneration
Quantity
Quality
Flood Risk
Flora , Fauna,
Invasive species
Silos - Tyrannies of Expertise

46. Silos - Splendid Isolation
Available resources
Aspiration
Adapted from: Bide & Cranston (2014)

47. Synergy - The Power of Partnership
Available resources
Aspiration
Adapted from: Bide & Cranston (2014)

48. Source: InterAct Networks (2012)

49. Source: ARUP (2014)
Multiple Benefits - Collective Impact
Partner 1 Partner 2 Partner 3
Direct benefit returned
Indirect benefit or no benefit to investor
Individual case for action (not all benefits deliverable)
Wider case for action

50. Collaborative Advantage
Direct benefit returned
Indirect benefit or no benefit to investor
Individual case for action (not all benefits deliverable)
Wider case for action
Source: ARUP (2014)

51. Source: DEFRA (2015)
Collective Impact

52. Catchment Partnerships - Success Indicators
Adapted from: IUCN (2015) Foster (2016)

53. Young
Catchment Partnership
Mature
Catchment Partnership
Catchment Partnerships - Maturity Model

54. Catchment Partnerships - Resilience
• Knowing what we have and what we need
• Embedding how we do things
• Team size
• Workload
• Performance
• Effectiveness and efficiency
• Skills
• Knowledge and experience
• Funding
• Investment

55. Our 25 year
ambition for the
water environment
from source to sea
Catchments function more
naturally and wildlife can thrive
and migrate along them freely
Water quality and quantity is
improved, managed and
conserved as a valuable resource
for business, people and wildlife,
and is resilient to climate change
and weather extremes
People recognise the high
social and economic value
of the water environment, now
and for future generations
Water is an economic
asset considered in all
decisions which impact
on it
The number of people
involved in using and
making the water
environment better is
increased
Better land management
and industry practises will
improve the water
environment
Better urban design
increases the health of the
water environment
A shared vision for each
catchment drives decisions
and investments
Leadership of the
water environment
is nationally
strategic, and
locally owned
People can
readily find, share
and easily use
the data and
evidence they
need to deliver or
achieve
Statements 1-9 i £
1
3
5
7
9
2
4
6
8
10
Together

56. Growing population
10 million increase on current
UK population (>64 million) by 2039
Need more space
210,000 new households
expected per year
Currently use 3.5 UK's
worth of resources
Growing demands
Changing climate
Drier summers, wetter winters
more extreme events
Environmental Pressures - 'Wicked' Problems

57. Complexity
Uncertainty
'Wicked' Problems - Systems Perspective
Characterised by complexity and uncertainty
(Rittel and Webber, 1973)
Rittel, H. and Webber, M. (1973) Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning. Policy Sciences. Vol.4: 155-169
Wicked
Problem
Structured
Problem
Increasing need
for collective
action
Increasing uncertainty
about problem solution

58. Systems Perspective - Bridging the Silos
Source: Flowers (2015)

59. Source: Flowers (2015)
Systems Perspective - Boundary Framing

60. Source: Conservation Ontario
Catchment - System Boundary

61. ICM
Adapted from Grigg (2008)
Cooling
Catchment - System Interconnections

62. CatchmentContext
Catchment Understanding
Data
Information
Knowledge
Catchment - System Interactions

63. CatchmentContext
Catchment Understanding
Stakeholder
Engagement
Co-Inquiry
Co-Design
Knowledge
through
action
Catchment - System Integration
Social
Learning
Source: Ison (2016)

64. Data
Information
Knowledge
Understanding
Insight
Grasp
Principles
Grasp
Reasons
Grasp
Patterns
Grasp
Relations
Learning the Lessons

65. Data
Information
Knowledge
Understanding
Insight
Grasp
Principles
Grasp
Reasons
Grasp
Patterns
Grasp
Relations
Project
Objectives
Monitoring
Objectives
Effective
Monitoring
Demonstrable
Project
Success
Case Studies
Secure Future
Funding
Funding
Secured
Capacity Built
Learning the Lessons

66. Data
Information
Knowledge
Understanding
Insight
Grasp
Principles
Grasp
Reasons
Grasp
Patterns
Grasp
Relations
Project
Objectives
Monitoring
Objectives
Effective
Monitoring
Demonstrable
Project
Success
Case Studies
Secure Future
Funding
Funding
Secured
Capacity Built
Do
things right
Management
Learning the Lessons

67. Data
Information
Knowledge
Understanding
Insight
Grasp
Principles
Grasp
Reasons
Grasp
Patterns
Grasp
Relations
Project
Objectives
Monitoring
Objectives
Effective
Monitoring
Demonstrable
Project
Success
Case Studies
Secure Future
Funding
Funding
Secured
Capacity Built
Do
things right
Management
Do the
right things
Governance & Leadership
Learning the Lessons

68. Governance - Principles
Source: OECD (2015)

69. National
River Basin
Districts
Catchments
Governance - Co-Design
Water
Leaders Group
Catchment
Partnerships

70. National
River Basins
Catchments
Water
Leaders Group
Catchment
Partnerships
Collaborate
Communicate Coordinate
Governance - Co-Inquiry

71. National
River Basins
Catchments
Water
Leaders Group
Catchment
Partnerships
Collaborate
Communicate Coordinate
Governance - Co-Learning
Source: USGS (2016)

72. National
River Basins
Catchments
Water
Leaders Group
Catchment
Partnerships
Collaborate
Communicate Coordinate
Governance - Co-Delivery: Capacity, Capability
National
Support Group

73. "apart from aqueducts, sanitation, roads and irrigation…?"
Source: Monty Python (Life of Brian)
What have the Romans ever done for us?

74. "has the Water Framework Directive
What have the Romans ever done for us?
"a systematic framework for adaptive management of our water environment"

75. Water Framework Directive
River Basin Planning

76. Adaptive Management - Plan Together

77. Adaptive Management - Deliver in Partnership

78. Collaborative
Action
Social
Learning
Systems
Approach
Shared
Understanding
Source: Foster (2016)

79. Collaborative
Action
Social
Learning
Systems
Approach
Shared
Understanding
Top Down
Bottom Up
Shared
Understanding

80. We deliver through partnerships –
with other organisations, businesses,
farmers, local authorities, non-government
organisations and communities
Sir James Bevan
Chief Executive
Environment Agency
6 September 2016

82. #RTConf16
Freshwater Programme & Policy Specialist
WWF UK

83. www.waterlife.org.ukwww.waterlife.org.uk WWF registered charity no.1081247, a company limited by guarantee no. 4016725
WATERLIFE is funded by EC LIFE+. Project number: LIFE13 ENV/UK/000497
A Framework for Civil Society
Engagement and Partnership
Working
Kathy Hughes
Freshwater Programme and Policy Specialist
WWF-UK
Rivers Trust Autumn Conference
12th September 2016

84. www.waterlife.org.uk
Focus
• WaterLIFE aims and objectives
• Our partners
• What we’ve done
• What we’ve learnt
• Toolkit
• WaterLIFE Declaration

85. www.waterlife.org.uk
What is WaterLIFE?
WaterLIFE Objective: Healthier rivers brought about
through increased Water Framework Directive
implementation through civil society and private sector
partnerships
Timescale: Three years from July 2015 to June 2017
Where: From catchment scale to national scale to
European scale.
Who with: Associated partners - Rivers Trust &
Westcountry Rivers Trust. Delivery partners - Severn
Rivers Trust, Trent Rivers Trust, Norfolk Rivers Trust and
Coca-Cola.

86. www.waterlife.org.uk
What have we done?
• Five catchments
• Camlad: Severn Rivers Trust
• Soar: Trent Rivers Trust
• Tamar: Westcountry Rivers Trust
• Cam & Ely Ouse: Rivers Trust
• Broadland Rivers: Norfolk Rivers Trust
• Research
• Workshops across England & other Member States
• Save Our Waters campaign
• Policy influencing
• Engagement from catchment to the Commission

87. www.waterlife.org.uk
What have we learnt?
Enabling conditions for partnerships with civil society and private sector:
• Scale of granularity
• Clear objective and narrative
• Evidence of issue and rational for engagement
• Fair level playing field where legislation is known and enforced
• Ability to influence current governance structures
• Engagement with all sectors
• Framework for achieving this – the Catchment Based Approach.

88. www.waterlife.org.uk
What have we created?

89. www.waterlife.org.uk
WaterLIFE Declaration
We, the undersigned, share a vision for healthy rivers, fair water use and sustainable
supply chains. We are committed to working together to achieve this vision and recognise
the importance of the following to do so:
• Partnership: Support and investment in the Catchment Based Approach,
recognising catchment partnerships are an essential basis for collaborative
action and impact at all scales.
• Equity: Through its new abstraction and agricultural policies, the
government must ensure environmental protection across England and
Wales and create a level playing field.
• Collaboration: All sectors working together openly, honestly and without
blame, to develop shared, evidence-based and deliverable solutions.
www.waterlife/declaration

90. www.waterlife.org.uk Images: © Jonathan Lewis/WWF-UK
www.waterlife.org

91. #RTConf16
Professor of Environmental Policy and Development
SOAS, University of London

92. What needs to get done
and how we and other
countries do it
Laurence Smith,
SOAS, University of London
Edmilson Teixeira, UFES
Rivers Trust Autumn Conference:
The partnership approach & assessing the
benefits of catchment management
12th & 13th September 2016.
Exeter

93. Why catchments?
• ‘everything’ needs land and water – getting it
right is central
• ‘source to the sea’ inter-dependencies
• people can understand their inter-dependence
on a common resource
• a basis for managing trade-offs and synergies
• a ‘forum’ for deliberation and partnership
But:
• many other scales and boundaries exist
• public administration
• other sectors (e.g. energy, food-supply, cities)
• other determinants of landscape, ecosystems
and biodiversity
• all are needs for coordination at a meso-scale

94. Bottom Up
Top Down

95. Meso
Meshing

96. Adaptive
Integrated
Catchment
Management
Damian Crilly

97. Top-down – we need
• legitimacy provided by elected
legislatures and their statutes
• national (and regional) priorities and
environmental standards
• transposition into duties for local bodies
(obligations and empowerment that are
feasible, mutually accepted and
fundable)
• funding mechanisms

98. For example
For England, the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) as transposed into
national legislation defines goals, principles and procedures rather than
practice.
• How to assess, interpret and achieve ‘good ecological status for all waterbodies’
is, within limits, the purview of member states.
• Article 14 requires member states to ensure participation by stakeholders in
implementation.
In Brazil, the National Water Resources Policy requires that water resources
management be decentralised and open to the participation of water users,
local communities and organized civil society.
• River basin committees have autonomy for water allocation, water charges and
choice of water quality standard for each water body
• In practice autonomy is constrained by
obligations to those downstream and
by approval of plans by higher bodies.
USA: the Clean Water Act (1972)
Australia: National Water Quality
Management and Natural Heritage
Trust Strategies
China: the Water Law (1988, revised 2002)
Brazil: 27 states
EU: 28 member
states
L. Couldrick

99. Bottom up – we need
• effective stakeholder participation
• local political, managerial and scientific leadership
• inclusive deliberation at the right scale to generate
plans and actions well adapted to local conditions
• implementation that benefits from local knowledge
and support
• coordinated delivery by relevant agencies, land
and water users, and civil society organisations
• broad acceptance and legitimacy
The benefits of SIN! (Fiorino, 1990)
• sustained core and other leveraged funding
• technical providers capable of:
o raising public awareness and support
o communication with all groups and sectors
o user advice provision
o catchment condition and threat assessment
o strategic and action planning
o monitoring and evaluation.

100. For example
• In England, catchment partnerships coordinated by host
organisations and supported by the Environment Agency
• In Brazil, River Basin Committees (RBC) supported by River
Basin Agencies (RBA)
o RBCs - “water parliaments” - representatives from civil society,
water users and public agencies
o RBCs are mandated to promote inclusive debate, arbitrate
disputes, approve a water resources master plan, monitor its
implementation, set water charges and employ a RBA as their
executive secretariat.
o RBA roles include: monitoring the basin water balance,
inventory of water users, master plan preparation and
implementation, levy of water charges, holding funds, and
supervision of projects.
• USA, diverse watershed partnerships and collaborations
(Sabatier et al, 2005.)
• Australia:
o Queensland: not-for-profit, community governed regional
organisations
o NSW, Victoria: catchment management authorities
o WA, SA: regional natural resource management boards
• China ?

101. In the middle - we need
• coordinated management of natural resources across:
• catchments, counties/districts, national parks, AONBs, power, water, road and rail
grids and NGOs
• water, wastewater, agriculture, forestry, energy, industry, transport, urban and
voluntary
• planning alignment: strategic and action plans (and their
implementation) that are complementary and reinforcing (rather than
mismatched or conflicting).

102. For example
In Brazil:
• hierarchical and shared responsibilities
• national, state, river basin and sub-catchment water resource management plans should
‘speak to each other’ and cascade up and down from strategic to local priorities and actions
• plans at lower level are approved by the relevant higher RBC
• RBCs for trans-state rivers serve as integrating RBCs that receive representatives from
their constituent RBCs.
In England:
• many planning cycles across sectors that rarely communicate or coordinate effectively
• a challenge for catchment management and CaBA
• CABA National Support Group (NSG) made up of stakeholder representatives has an
evolving mandate but to date a primarily technical role in seeking to support catchment
partnership development
• River Basin Liaison Panels are regional stakeholder forums established to help guide
planning at the scale of 11 river basin districts in England and Wales. How functional? How
effective? How accepted?
In USA:
Inter-municipal agreements
River basin scale partnerships e.g. Hudson River Estuary Program
In Queensland, Australia: regional partnerships e.g. Heathy Waterways

103. Common challenges to be met
• Financial sustainability
• Representation & engagement
• Balancing water-focused and wider agendas
• Recognition by wider society
The best catchment partnerships will:
o win resources (and core funding)
o maintain autonomy by demonstrating cost-
effective delivery of top-down priorities
o whilst working with others and integrating
achievement of other local and other sector
goals
o achieving broad-based recognition,
acceptance and support (local legitimacy).
• Nations must find their own balance of formal
and informal arrangements, but a starting
point is to make explicit the functions/needs to
be achieved ‘top-down’, ‘bottom-up’ and
‘meso-meshed’.

104. Acknowledging the contributions to this work by: Edmilson Teixeira, Laurence
Couldrick, Arlin Rickard, Damian Crilly, Hazel Kendall, Lucy Morris
Westcountry Rivers Trust
Thank you for your attention:
Contact: Laurence Smith - l.smith@soas.ac.uk
Laboratório de Gestão de
Recursos Hídricos e
Desenvolvimento Regional –
LabGest,
Federal University of
Espírito Santo
The Rivers Trust

105. #RTConf16
12th & 13th September 2016
Rougemont Hotel, Exeter