Catchment Change Network.net

Keith Beven  (Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, UK) has been awarded the 2012 American Geophysical Union Horton Medal for outstanding contributions to hydrological research. The award will be presented at the Union Medal Ceremony in San Francisco in December.  This is one of the most prestigious awards for hydrological research, with this being only the second in Europe of the 27 previous awardees since 1976.

Keith on his birthday on the Rotthorn, Lake Brienz, Switzerland

The JBA Trust held its first river restoration workshop at the University of Gloucestershire in May 2012. The event was well attended by a variety of restoration practitioners ranging from Rivers Trusts to regulators and contractors.

The workshop sessions debated river naturalization, urban restoration, rivers and floodplains and barrier issues.

The results of the deliberations are now available on the JBA Trust website

These findings are invaluable to those seeking funding for river restoration, providing a justification for works and reviewing best practice whilst at the same time highlighting pitfalls in restoration design and the gaps in our knowledge linked to river restoration. Much of the information is also relevant to meeting the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

In response to the  on deculverting, a new website  has been launched by scientists from the Catchment Science Centre, Kroto Research Institute at the University of Sheffield providing case study details of deculverting/daylighting urban rivers from around the world.  Its aim is to spread awareness of this river restoration technique to practitioners and policy makers.

The website is aimed at those with an interest/working in environmental engineering, river restoration, urban design and landscape, SUDS, civil engineering, and social sciences. Researchers will also find it useful as it documents the projects’ goals and outcomes and links to more material. Everyone can easily add a new case study site, or submit corrections/improvements to the database.

For more details contact Obama signed legislation that creates more opportunities https://www.paper-writer.org for students and others to serve their communities

Abstract submission from July 2012. Abstract deadline:  20 October 2012

Objectives
This conference aims to discuss the entire policy cycle for water quality improvement. This cycle includes problem recognition, formulation of technical options, the process of policy development, interaction with policy makers, stakeholders and pressure groups, policy implementation, monitoring and research. This conference also aims to intensify contacts, on the one hand, between scientists with a background in natural sciences and scientists with a background in social and economic sciences and, on the other hand, between scientists, water managers and policy makers. In short, the objectives are:
–  to provide forum for exchange of scientific knowledge, research on system knowledge, modelling and uncertainty;
–  to discuss the entire policy cycle for water quality improvement;
–  to intensify contacts (a) between soil/water related scientists, agro related scientists, social scientists, ecological scientists and economists, and (b) between scientists, water managers and policy makers.

Target groups and keywords
Target groups are scientists, managers and policy makers involved in the policy cycle for water quality improvement. It includes activities characterised by the following keywords: agronomy, agro-economics, agro-sociology, water management, water policy, hydrology, aquatic ecosystems, terrestrial ecosystems, unsaturated zone, groundwater, surface waters, drinking water, monitoring, modelling, water quality, nutrients, agro-chemicals.

THEMES
Contributions are solicited according to the following themes, themes A through F.

A.. Increasing system knowledge: research to increase understanding and improving modelling of the hydro(geo)logical, geochemical and biochemical reality
B.. Impact of climate change and weather variability: assessment of effect on groundwater and surface water quality and distinguishing from effect of human behaviour
C.. Assessment of national policy: assessment of effects of programmes of measures on water quality on a regional and national scale
D.. Field research and data interpretation: research (monitoring and modelling) at plot and field scale for quantifying effects of farming practices and changes in land use
E.. Managing protected areas: use of monitoring and modelling to improve water quality for drinking water supply areas and habitat and species protection areas
F.. Decision-making and implementation: role of policy, stakeholder and science in decision-making, and social and economic incentives and constraints for implementation (carrots and sticks)

For topics relevant these themes we refer to http://www.luwq2013.nl/themes_and_topics.

FURTHER INFORMATION: please feel free to contact the Organising Committee:
– Dico Fraters, dico.fraters@rivm.nl
– Karel Kovar, karel.kovar@pbl.nl

More information is on http://www.luwq2013.nl/

It was a Hectic Week at the end of June, with the annual CCN meeting becoming an , preceded by a meeting to discuss evolving CCN into a Catchment Change Management Hub and followed by to celebrate 20 years and 1000 citations of the first GLUE paper. Many thanks to all of those who attended and contributed to the meetings, especially to those who came a long way to Lancaster. I was pleased with the way that the CCN meeting threw together a highly eclectic group of presentations with science juxtaposed to policy, planning and practice – and performance / installation art. There were lots of ideas buzzing around, and lots of open questions about how best to engage stakeholders in the catchment change process, and how best to plan for the future. Ideas and contributions are still needed for what is needed on the Catchment Change Management Hub; for a test of hyperresolution modelling at the large catchment scale; for how to plan for change when climate change projections cannot be considered reliable and land use impacts might be more important in the shorter term; and for a comparative test of uncertainty estimation techniques. If you would like to be involved in any of these, please contact us. With all the excitement about new hardware today, it’s easy to forget that apple still has some gps phone tracker apps to www.celltrackingapps.com/ work to do on the software that our new iphones and ipads will run