Memorandum by Professor Colin Green, Flood
Hazard Research Centre
INTRODUCTION
1. There is widespread agreement that it
is necessary to approach the management of water from the perspective
of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM). This is taken
to include integration across the different functional aspects
of water management (eg across water quality and water resource
management); between land and water management; and across catchments
as coherent hydrological units. This concept underlies the Water
Framework Directive. Delivering the "good ecological quality"
prescribed in the Water Framework Directive is dependent not only
on water quality but also on the dynamic flow regime and the geomorphological
form of the river which is itself determined by the flow regime
and by the processes of erosion and deposition.
2. We have to approach the management of
water from the commitment of the UK government to stakeholder
engagement, recently reinforced in the Government's policy statement
"together we can", and the broader commitment of both
the UK Government and the EU to improving governance.
3. We require to deliver sustainable development.
This couples means to ends: it is necessary to make sustainable
use of available resources but our purpose is to deliver a "just"
society, as emphasised in the UK strategy on sustainable development.
We may disagree what we mean by a "just" society, and
have done so for thousands of years, but human aspiration is towards
a society which achieves justice through just means. Hence, in
some sense, we want to do "better" both in terms of
outcomes but also in terms of decision processes. An important
question is therefore: what do we, as a society, mean by "better"?
This is obviously an ethical, moral, religious or ideological
question. But any attempt at better management implies an answer.
4. It is a general truth that we manage
water in order to make the best use of land, and our use of land
then determines the water environment. England in particular is
very short of land particularly in the South-East, the area under
greatest development pressure. Here, the population density already
exceeds 800 people per square kilometre; in addition, some 80
per cent of the land not already in urban usage is covered by
one or other environmental designation.
5. In terms of water availability, the critical
measure is the ratio of precipitation to potential evapo-transpiration.
This determines whether arable farming can be purely rain-fed
or whether either rainwater harvesting or irrigation is necessary.
Whereas all urban uses could be satisfied with perhaps 300 litres
per person per day, growing the food to feed that person takes,
depending upon their diet, between two and three thousand litres.
Whereas we get most of the water used for urban purposes back,
so that it is in principle available for reuse, the water used
by the crops is lost. Hence, whilst it is often remarked that
parts of the country have the same amount of water as Somalia,
this is a misleading comparison because it is based upon the mean
river flow per capita and takes 500 m3 per capita as a criterion
of water scarcity. But if crops must be irrigated then 500 m3
is inadequate; if they need not be then 500 m3 is a multiple of
the minimum requirement for urban uses. But of course both the
rainfall and streamflows are already being used by the environment.
6. The Committee has elected to exclude
flooding from its remit, for quite understandable reasons. However,
one of the messages of Integration Water Resource Management is
that it is necessary to integrate across the different functional
uses of water. Specifically, we should not be considering water
resources, droughts and flooding as three different issues. We
should instead be thinking about managing the variability in water
availability over time where droughts and floods are simply the
extremes of the time series. Otherwise, interventions to reduce
the risk of flooding may simply increase water resource problems
and increase the risk of low flows. In addition, the greater the
variation in rainfall and runoff over the year and between years,
the more flood flows become the water resource and the greater
the need to store flood flows in order to provide water in the
dry season. Current predictions of climate change are of greater
variability in rainfall across the year and between years. It
is the variability in rainfall that resulted in Spain ending up
with a system of plumbing in place of a network of rivers.
7. Any water management strategy must recognise
that water management is energy intensive; water is heavy and
incompressible and lifting water requires substantial amounts
of energy. Traditionally, we have consequently sought to rely
as far as possible on potential energy in the form of gravity
rather than kinetic energy. Since all water is recycled though
the natural hydrological cycle, the extent to which we can tighten
that cycle of reuse is ultimately determined by the real cost
of energy: both the financial cost of energy and its environmental
cost.
INSTITUTIONS
8. It is easier to talk of Integrated Water
Resource Management than to deliver it. Since we are talking about
systems, of which the water cycle is simply one system, a question
that has to be addressed is: which form of integration is it most
important to achieve? I would argue that it is integration between
land and water management that is the essential form of integration
rather than across functions or across catchments. If so, it is
critical that the issues of water management be incorporated into
the Regional Spatial Strategies and the subsidiary spatial plans.
At the same time, spatial planning needs to continue to recognise
both multiple objectives and multiple constraints and to avoid
issues of water management becoming the sole determinants of spatial
planning.
9. Catchment management exposes the "whole-part"
problem which is arguably the key problem in any form of policy
or programme planning. We seek a holistic approach which at the
same time results in locally appropriate actions. In the old slogan:
"think globally, act locally". The problem is to bring
the two together. A "top-down" approach risks leaving
no scope for local choice, and hence for real engagement by the
local community; a "bottom-up" approach may result in
fragmented, unrelated actions which simply shift the problem around.
10. One of the problems of integration is
that by definition any institution is defined by the formal or
informal system of rules that govern it. Those rules are both
functional and spatial in nature. They may specify what it must
do, what it may and/or what it must not do, and where. Since there
must be institutional boundaries, our problem is how to develop
co-operation or co-ordination across institutional boundaries.
11. In addition, we have conflicting demands
of our institutions: we need them to be adaptive to changing circumstances
and innovative, but we also require them to be accountable. For
accountability, we require that they demonstrate that they followed
some system of rules. A system of rules that governs what actions
the institution can and cannot do maximises accountability but
restricts both adaptation and innovation. Systems of rules that
prescribe decision processes and objectives increase the institution's
scope for adaptability and innovation but can reduce accountability.
12. In turn, if we want institutions that
innovate then we want more successful failures and we have to
accept such failures by our institutions. It is inevitable that
some innovations will not succeed; if we do not tolerate some
failures by our institutions, we will stifle innovation and we
cannot do "better" except through innovation. By a "successful
failure", I mean an innovation which whilst it failed to
deliver what was intended, it taught us something new and hence
increases the likelihood that the next innovation will be successful.
13. That we must seek to be more adaptive
and innovative requires that a key requirement is for institutional
learning and the diffusion of that learning. We need to learn
more quickly. One strategy would be to seek to create a water
management community in the same way that Defra arguably has done
over the last thirty years for flood and coastal defence. Their
annual flood and coastal defence conference is successful in bringing
together a range of stakeholders which I do not see occurring
in other areas.
14. A continuing problem of integration
is between disciplines; it is much easier to talk of inter-, multi-
and trans-disciplinary work than to deliver it. The dichotomy
here is that disciplinary approaches are arguably necessary to
deepen knowledge but that practice requires synthesis across these
approaches. I will return to this problem later.
15. All decisions are attempts to choose
the future; presently, we can see a clash between two conceptual
approaches to choosing the future and consequently as to the nature
of uncertainty, as to what we can know about those futures between
which we seek to choose. On the one hand, there is the perhaps
dominant view that uncertainty can be expressed as risk and that
risk can be reduced by research. On the other is the view that
the future is inherently unknown and unknowable. That latter conceptualisation
is that of Keynes, of Shell's scenario approach to planning, and
of the Adaptive Management approach developed by ecologists, notably
Buzz Holling. Whether we argue that future is simply risky or
unknown should significantly affect the courses of action we adopt
and the processes by which we choose between alternative courses
of action.
16. Since I am strongly biased towards the
latter approach, I argue that all choice is a process of learning;
we seek to discover which course of action to adopt and in the
course of that process of learning, we hope to invent a better
course of action.
17. In terms of the performance of the existing
institutions, Defra's policy document "Directing the Flow"
is very good. That all aspects of water management were brought
together when Defra was created is also promising. However, the
consultation documents prepared in the run-up to the implementation
of the WFD were singularly uninspiring and the criticisms of the
House of Commons Select Committee on the implementation of the
WFD were merited.
18. More widely, research into how to implement
the Water Framework Directive has been undertaken in the UK and
across Europe after it was implemented rather than either before
the Directive was agreed or during the period between agreement
and the Directive coming into effect. This failure of foresight
is also notable on the part of academics.
19. The Environment Agency was hamstrung
from the beginning by the emphasis by the then Government in setting
it up on devising an administrative structure that would save
money rather than one which maximise effectiveness or efficiency.
The combination of three functions: all media pollution management;
integrated catchment management; and the delivery of a very large
capital and operating programme of flood risk and coastal defence
have also created management problems for the Agency. These are
problems which it might be argued that the Agency has had ever
since been struggling to resolve.
20. The illness and early death of Geoff
Mance, its founding director of water resources, probably also
created some problems for the Agency but the Agency's response
to his illness and to his death was exemplary.
21. The national shortage of water engineers
and the problems of staff retention also inhibit the performance
of the Agency and ones which they are seeking to address by, for
example, sponsoring a Foundation Degree in flood management.
22. Integrated Water Resource Management
should be expected to result in the increased adoption of multi-functional
solutions; for example, the creation of wetlands to simultaneously
tackle water quality problems, provide flood storage, and enhance
biodiversity. However, multi-functionality has at present to be
delivered through single function budgets. In particular, the
only significant capital budget available to the Agency is that
for flood and coastal defence. Whilst Defra is currently funding
a study on how best to implement multi-functional solutions through
the single functional budgets of different stakeholders, it is
a pity that the Agency does not have the power to raise some broader
"catchment improvement" levy which could be used for
such multi-functional schemes. This would probably make it easier
for it to work with the other stakeholders in delivering such
schemes. Such funds might have been raised through charges for
abstractions or discharges.
23. The Environment Agency is finding the
transition from what was a scientific bureaucracy to operating
within the new context of stakeholder engagement very problematic.
Its consultation paper as to how it should engage with the stakeholders
under the Water Framework Directive was deeply unconvincing and
attracted wide criticism. But, since the Agency lacks either the
powers or the funding as the Competent Authority to deliver the
Water Framework Directive, success in engaging with the stakeholders
is a survival issue for the Agency.
24. The privatisation of the wastewater
and water industry left the companies uncertain as to their role
and for some years they failed to put forward any convincing vision.
As a result they were squeezed between the Environment Agency
and OFWAT, who, respectively, took all the credit for environmental
improvements and increased efficiencies. The Environment Agency,
for example, took the credit for the improvements in the water
quality of the tidal Thames which had been paid for by the charge
payers of Thames Water and delivered by Thames Water. I argued
some years ago that the companies ought to have positioned themselves
under the slogan "The environment's water, your money, our
responsibility", and, that as such they ought to be practically
bullet proof. By defining themselves as being there to make profits,
rather than to deliver a service for which profits were necessary
in order for the service to be viable, they exposed themselves
to attack from every direction.
25. Whilst the process of privatisation
was a search for a means of privatisation rather than for a means
of improving efficiency, the attempt was made to move away from
the US model of return on capital as the basis for price setting
to a system of price setting that provides incentives for efficiency.
But, since water management is capital intensive, issues of price
setting ultimately always resolve to questions of the appropriate
return on capital. The price structure creates pressures on O
& M costs but OFWAT is forced into the position of trying
to second guess the companies' investment needs and cost of capital.
At the same time, in each price and quality round, all the other
stakeholders, notably the Environment Agency, English Nature and
the environment NGOs play a game of poker; when one states a need
for the investment of £x billion, the next responds that
I'll see your £x billion and raise it £5 billion. Since
the price structure creates an incentive for the companies to
invest, they are happy as long as they are allowed to invest in
something. Hence, there is a collective enthusiasm for investment
in which the consumers' voice is under-represented. This collective
enthusiasm for investment was seen in the PR campaign for the
Thames Tideway scheme during the time between the interim and
final price determinations in the last price and quality round.
The alignment of interests in favour of additional investment
and the under-representation of the consumer makes it inevitable
that OFWAT has to seek political direction as to the trade-off
that should be made between prices and investment.
26. Longer term, it can be questioned whether
it makes sense for private industry to tie up increasing amounts
of capital in an industry where growth should be expected to be
negative but the demand for quality improvements to continue to
rise. They might achieve better returns on capital by seeking
drive up efficiency gains in operations and investment whilst
leaving the capital investment to the consumer. The Welsh Glas
model may be the model of the future.
RESEARCH AND
DEVELOPMENT
27. The UK has a very strong R & D base
in regard to water management. This includes HR Wallingford; WDEC
at Loughborough University; the different groups at Cranfield
Unversity; Ian Calder's group at Newcastle University; the development
studies groups at Sussex and UEA; PSIRU at Greenwich; David Butler's
group at Imperial College; WRc; and Tony Allen's group now at
Kings College, London, amongst others. Both the Environment Agency's
Demand Management Centre and the government's Envirowise are key
players in demand management and along with some of the groups
listed above are world leaders in their areas. But the quality
of UK research is of skewed distribution, as is probably inevitable.
28. Equally, there are potentially significant
innovations taking place including the "BedZed" housing
development and the proposed "North Harlow" development.
Conversely, there are a number of shibboleths that are routinely
repeated eg water metering as a panacea for demand management
and wetlands as a solution for almost every problem. In practice,
water metering provides only a signal and incentive for demand
management, and quite an expensive signal at that. Similarly,
wetlands can be emitters of methane, an aggressive greenhouse
gas, and this has to be considered when planning to create or
re-create wetlands.
29. In considering R & D, particularly
academic research, there are two fundamental questions: firstly,
does advance occur by accretion, evolution or revolution? Secondly,
what is the relationship between research and practice? Answers
to these questions are necessary before we can answer the basic
question of: what research strategy will benefit the UK and the
wider community.
30. The accretion model perhaps represents
Kuhn's conventional science; it is certainly very comforting for
the academic as it presents no challenges to us as we become more
senior. Equally, it makes the decision as to which research to
fund quite straightforward. If however advance occurs through
evolution or revolution, then we should be promoting and funding
evolution and revolution, and the inherent conservatism of the
accretion approach can be counter-productive although a degree
of conservatism in the form of scepticism is necessary to distinguish
between true and illusory evolutions or revolutions.
31. There remains some highly undesirable
conservatism in the form of unreconstructed sexism and other forms
of discrimination in some areas of academic life. I am told that
a very senior figure in geomorphology expresses the view that
women are physically incapable of undertaking fieldwork in this
field and should never be allowed to drive. But the women experiencing
this prejudice are also aware that the person in question could
destroy their careers if they complain. The peer review process
itself must itself be constantly kept under review to avoid it
becoming simply institutionalised prejudice. Merely being an academic
does not necessarily make one a nice person.
32. The conventional conveyor belt model
of basic research, strategic applied research and so on down to
consultancy is delightfully self-serving for the academic as we
can indulge in blue skies research whilst simultaneously claiming
that eventually someone else will find it useful. I'd claim that
there is instead a virtuous circle between theory and practice
in water management. That there is nothing so useful as a good
theory but nothing like confronting practical questions to expose
areas where either there is no theory or existing theory does
not survive the reality test.
33. The answers to these two questions also
determine the appropriate form of the Research Assessment Exercise
(RAE) since it is to the incentives provided by the RAE that academics
very largely respond. In previous rounds both the Research Councils
and the Environment Agency have claimed that the format of the
RAE did not reflect their interests.
34. Two other issues are research productivity
and dissemination. We want to produce more high quality research
per pound spent but I can find very little literature on how research
should be organised (ie as a research centre) so as to maximise
this ratio. It should be possible to draw lessons from highly
successful groups in the past that can be applied now. This might
include training in research leadership or lessons of research
organisation and should not rely either upon outstanding intellectual
capacity or personality on the part of the researchers. We want
high quality research from the not necessarily first rate.
35. Academics are both compelled by the
RAE and by vanity to publish to each other; the problem is more
one of stopping us producing papers which often contribute little.
But there is very little literature on the best means of turning
invention into innovation, of translating theory into practice,
of communicating with the end users. I believe that creating a
community of water management would be helpful in this regard
but some examination of the effectiveness of alternative approaches
to dissemination would be helpful.
36. This absence of a community of research
and practice was notable at the 3rd World Water Forum at Kyoto;
the Dutch and, to a lesser extent, the French put together impressive
combinations of stands and programmes of activities in which government
agencies, consultants, the research centres and private industry
combined. The formal UK presence was a very small stand by ODI.
I have suggested that DTI should look to create a similar UK presence
at the 4th World Water Forum in Mexico City in order to help UK
exports of goods and services.
ADAPTATION AND
INNOVATION
37. The existing stock of buildings is being
replaced at a very low rate; notably, housing where the current
rate of replacement is 0.1 per cent per annum. This, together
with the large sunk investment in the existing wastewater and
water systems mean that we will have to deliver sustainable development,
at least initially, very largely with the existing stock.
38. This means that retro-fitting to increase
the efficiency of water use is key. The Envirowise programme has
shown that in industry there is extensive scope for improving
the efficiency of the use of water whilst simultaneously increasing
profits. There would seem to be a "free-lunch" available
in the order of a 15-25 per cent reduction in water usage. This
potential free lunch is partly because reducing water consumption
can potentially save money four times: in water usage, energy
usage (large amounts of water being used for heating or cooling),
wastewater treatment, and the recovery of materials entrained
in the water.
39. The other message from Envirowise and
globally as well is that prices are relatively ineffective in
reducing demand and that substantial price rises are required
to deliver relatively small reductions in demand.
40. It may be that to deliver sustainable
development we will have to return to the levels of house building
seen in the immediate post-war period; we need to assess whether
an enhanced rate of replacement of our existing stock is more
efficient in terms of sustainability than seeking to retro-fit
our existing stock.
41. More widely, the critical question is
whether the determinants of water usage are primarily behavioural
or technological or other. If domestic usage in particular is
primarily driven by behavioural factors, then metering might be
effective in the long run. If, however, it is primarily determined
by technological factors then the emphasis should be on promoting
the adoption of the appropriate technologies. I would argue that
technology is more important in domestic water usage than behaviour,
that the greater water use efficiency in homes in the UK as compared
to the USA is significantly the result of technological factors
(eg the use of front loading as opposed to top-loading washing
machines).
42. In terms of water usage efficiencies,
Copenhagen's target of reducing domestic water usage to 110 litres
per person per day looks reasonable. The idea of a "Water
Trust" is an interesting suggestion of a means of promoting
the replacement of water appliances by more efficient appliances.
In particular, it may be suspected that the poor are least likely
to have or be able to afford new, water efficient appliances and
hence most likely to be disadvantaged by a reliance on water pricing
as a means to induce water efficiency.
43. Next, we are likely to be looking to
de-couple sanitation from water usage. Simply following the slogan
from the last Californian drought "If it is yellow, let it
mellow; if its brown, flush it down" could significantly
reduce that 30-35 per cent of domestic water usage that is used
simply to flush toilets. In multi-occupancy building, water-free
urinals are an option. Completely cutting the link between human
waste and water usage by shifting to "Eco-San" techniques
will be more challenging.
44. Probably beyond that we are looking
for the adoption of rainwater harvesting, or local reuse and recycling.
Here, real energy costs are critical; to increase water reuse
whilst increasing greenhouse gas emission would probably be counter-productive.
In addition, there tend to be technological economies of scale
in water management.
45. As noted at the beginning, potable water
requirements are small compared to the water requirements of food
production. In addition, urban areas are efficient forms of rainwater
harvesting; in general, we get more water out of a city than we
supply to it. Indeed, it is the efficiency of urban areas as rainwater
harvesters that is the problem: that most rainfall on a city is
efficiently gathered up by the roofs and other impermeable areas,
and then rapidly conveyed to the nearest water course by the sewer
is what creates the problem. Particularly when in the course of
washing the roofs, the pavements and the roads that rainfall becomes
polluted.
46. Simultaneously, there are contending
pressures for which water efficiency is only one issue. The government
quite reasonably wants brownfield sites to be used rather than
greenfield sites for new housing, and high densities to be adopted
partly in order to reduce land take. It is also emphasising the
need to reduce the cost of housing for key workers. At the same
time, it is promoting the adoption of source control. Out of this
triangle of conflicting requirements, we have to create a virtuous
circle.
August 2005
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