Catchment resilience and value

Why?

Catchments can be assessed by the ecosystem services they provide, such as, water supply, food production and habitats. The resilience of these services with changes in climate, land use and management needs to be evaluated in order to guide and advise the development of evidence based policies.

We will:

• Characterise and assess integrated water uses and values.
• Develop robust indicators of ecological status of waters
• Audit key features of water bodies that enhance resilience and value
• Model biophysical and socio-economic processes in catchments to explore the potential to maximise social value of water use

Outcomes

• Provision of a database on the costs, values and uses of water in Scotland
• Understanding the links between water quality, habitat, ecology and its management at the reach and catchment scale
• Assess the impacts of engineering on morphology and ecology
• Evaluation of scenarios of change on the resilience and social value of water bodies

Contact

Dr. Dominic Moran