The role of resilience is particularly crucial in managing the impacts of environmental changes (i.e. climate change, land use change) for example to prioritise mitigation measures to tackle greatest risks first. Aquatic ecosystems can experience multiple and interacting pressures and respond suddenly to environmental change, sometimes flipping to a new equilibrium. However, our understanding of resilience to environmental change is limited due to the difficulty in detecting ecological stability across pressure gradients at various spatio-temporal scales. Lack of knowledge on how key ecosystem functions relate to multiple stressors and drivers of change (notably climate & land use) therefore constrains effective resilience-based responses. This has implications for meeting current policy targets and prioritisation of adaptation actions to avoid future loss of function and service. Furthermore, regulatory measures have often been implemented in isolation rather than maximising potential synergies for maintaining resilient functioning ecosystems.
The need to evaluate resilience at national-level thus defines a high-level requirement to assess present and future risk and adaptive capacity for catchments across Scotland.
Aim of Research
To evaluate the capacity of water resources to adapt to changing environmental and socio-economic conditions, in order to maintain key functions, goods and services (resilience)
This RD addresses one of the fundamental research questions of the programme: How resilient are Scotland’s natural assets to climate change and other risks (invasive non-native species (INNS), pollution, etc.), and what are the key interventions to make them more resilient or to protect them from further harm? To do this, RD 1.2.3 considers components of natural and managed water systems (and their interactions), their responses to multiple stressors, aspects of risk vs resilience and control measures. Using case studies, we explore (a) the concept of multiple stressors acting on a water body now and under future scenarios; (b) the provision of goods and services through the water environment; (c) natural resilience of the water environment that we can characterise and utilise in managing change. This natural resilience may be utilised as an alternative or complement to conventional management approaches. We may also need to manage this resilience with engineering (e.g. flood defence; water treatment) and accompany it with actions to enhance community resilience.
Further information
General information on the Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutes (SEFARI) and the Scottish Government funded Strategic Research Portfolio can be found on the SEFARI website [1].
Within this, there are webpages providing summary overview information for each of the Research Deliverables (RDs) within the Strategic Programme. The page for RD 1.2.3 Water environment resilience and adaption to change is available here [2] and includes annual progress and highlights summaries, key outputs and links to case studies and key research staff.
To complement this, some additional information is provided below on specific project objectives within this RD.
Projects
The package of work is underpinned by our long-term catchment and experimental datasets in RD1.2.1 [7] and closely aligned to mechanistic, empirical and predictive modelling work in RD1.2.2 [8]. These data will be used across the rest of Work Package 1.2 looking at sustainable management of the water environment.
Example outputs from the research to date include both technical studies describing science development and those putting the work in the context of our working with key stakeholders such as SEPA, Scottish Water, SNH, Forestry Commission Scotland, Fisheries Boards, Estates and others.
Links:
[1] https://sefari.scot/
[2] https://sefari.scot/research/objectives/water-environment-resilience-and-adaptation-to-change
[3] mailto:Marc.Stutter@hutton.ac.uk
[4] mailto:Zulin.Zhang@hutton.ac.uk
[5] mailto:Lisa.Avery@hutton.ac.uk
[6] mailto:Ina.Pohle@hutton.ac.uk
[7] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/srp2016-21/wp121-water-and-its-ecosystem-functions
[8] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/srp2016-21/wp122-impacts-change-water
[9] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/marc-stutter
[10] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/ina-pohle
[11] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/zulin-zhang
[12] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/samia-richards
[13] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/lisa-avery
[14] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/mads-troldborg
[15] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/srp2016-21/wp12-water
[16] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/projects/catchment-typologies-risk-and-resilience
[17] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/projects/rd-121-water-and-its-ecosystem-functions
[18] https://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/srp2016-21/wp124-effectiveness-water-management