Adaptive Water Management Under Uncertainty

The final conference of the NeWater Project was held in Saville from the 17th-19th November, 2008.  The conference addressed the theme of Adaptive Integrated Water Resources Management under Uncertainty and covered a range of contemporary water management tools, including:

• new insights on climate change scenarios & adaptation strategies;
• training material and guidance for implementing adaptive management;
• an analytical framework to support management transitions such as those needed as a result of climate change;
• examples of tools supporting adaptive management; and
• further insights from the case studies on practical action towards adaptive water management

NeWater is an action-research project (2005-2009) funded by the European Union’s 6th Framework research programme and focuses on adaptive water management. It conducts research on the adaptation measures necessary for addressing uncertainty through management tools.  It brings together 38 European academic and research institutions as partners. The project is concerned with how to integrate into management plans previsions to deal with the effects, certain and uncertain, that climate change will have on the bio-physical and socio-economic environments of a watershed. The project also aims at producing robust scientific knowledge on the intersection of science, policy, environment and management. It has been set up to inform policy-makers and practitioners through specific tools and other knowledge forms such as training materials and techno-scientific reports. According to the conference overview:

Water managers and policy makers face many challenges. They have to meet various, often conflicting demands with limited resources, face much uncertainty (e.g. concerning climate change) and often lack effective tools. To help them to meet these challenges, the European NeWater project has further developed the concept of Adaptive Integrated Water Resources Management (AIWM). The concept is based on the notion that the best way to manage water resources is to increase our capacity to learn from experience and adapt to change and uncertainty.

The conference also launched the NeWater Online Education Curriculum.