Stephen Barge, chief engineer and Gwion Kennard, director digital engineering, Atkins, take a look at why future catchment management demands an integrated, digital approach.

 Photo: Stephen Barge, chief engineer and Gwion Kennard, director digital engineering, Atkins

Stephen Barge, chief engineer and Gwion Kennard, director digital engineering, Atkins: Increasing flood risks, growing demands for better water quality, biodiversity net gain, and exacting net zero commitments by 2030: new pressures mean traditional catchment management is no longer fit for purpose. To manage them in a changing world, and balance the priorities of a multitude of stakeholders, we need to take a holistic, systems-led thinking approach. Assisted by new technological and digital advances, a modern, integrated and effective catchment management that can meet the moment is now possible.

What is an ideal catchment? The answer differs from stakeholder to stakeholder, farmer to water company, regulator to resident. Even within water companies, there are a plethora of different perspectives and priorities. Flood risk, wastewater, hydrology: this is a complex, multifaceted arena.

That’s a problem, because the next Asset Management Periods (AMPs) will bring intense pressure. Climate change will stress our systems through extreme weather conditions, and evolving regulation will increasingly demand more resilient infrastructure to prepare for it. Likewise, expectations amongst customers, investors and local communities - to transition to a low-carbon future, reduce pollution and build nature-positive solutions - are evolving too, all against the backdrop of maintaining affordability in a cost-of-living crisis.

It’s evident that the way we used to do things - grappling with individual problems - won’t solve the confluence of tomorrow’s problems. To better understand how a catchment works as a system, the relationships and interdependencies within it and the interactions with the wider community, economic and environmental landscape, we need a holistic approach. That’s the starting place for a new methodology of integrated, digitally-enabled catchment management. Underpinned by leading edge informational, operational and engineering technology, we can now incorporate the bigger picture into our decision-making - a crucial step to fund, design, and deliver the solutions we desperately need.

Testing the waters

A generational shift is underway to reduce our negative impacts on the environment. From investors driven by ESG principles to customers expecting evidence of nature-positive outcomes, we’re seeing a diversification from simple cost-benefit analysis to capture a wider pool of impacts, and recognise opportunities for co-benefits. There’s now real pressure to explore the reams of alternatives, challenging our tried-and-tested models.

Yet a key obstacle blocking progress in effective catchment management is a lack of clear understanding. How does a storm overflow discharge really affect a catchment? What’s the environmental impact 1km, or even 10km downstream? How much pollution results from intensive agriculture run-off, outlets from heavy industry or housing developments? Water companies often receive the sharp end of media attention, but without effective information, they will struggle to justify their actions or direct investment to where it’s most needed. As regulatory attention grows, it’s going to be ever more important to evidence our environmental, biodiversity, and water quality impact.

Riding the digital current

Accelerating climate change will only make this pressure more acute. Modelling future conditions is crucial for delivering sustainable infrastructure. If we want to maintain a supply of clean, plentiful water, it’s essential that we understand the impact of, say, 30% wetter winters or back to back once-in-a-century droughts. Moreover, as our assets age - some still date from the Victorian era - we must ascertain how best to exploit technology to direct investment into sufficiently robust solutions.

Digital and data-driven technologies can play a huge role upgrading our ability to manage these pressures, transforming our thinking to better capture the interrelationships between physical and natural assets, and how they behave under stress. By improving how we collect, manage and process multiple streams of data, we can increase line of sight to how they interact, better understanding and predicting the precise causes of system failures. Armed with more knowledge, we can take proactive, preventative action - reducing downtime, enhancing efficiency, and improving the end-to-end experience.

Crystal clear 

Transformation isn’t simple, though. The first step is establishing more transparency - for investors, customers, and regulators. We need more informed, data-driven decision making that sets out the trade offs of tomorrow’s solutions. To deliver both an affordable service for customers and achieve long-term sustainability goals, we must use our assets in a smarter, more cost-effective and value-driven way. That demands asking the right questions, understanding the potential of technology, and charting the future regulatory landscape.

This is a rapidly developing space, with new carbon and biodiversity markets appearing, increasingly accessible green finance and new opportunities for collaborative investment. On all fronts, to leverage the potential for nature-positive change, it’s vitally important we can properly evidence benefits. With more informed decision-making, we can and must unlock a host of multi-capital benefits - boosting biodiversity, creating carbon sinks and reducing flood risk, whilst also delivering a better bottom line across the board.

Next-generation thinking

Sustainability has never been so achievable - the water industry already has a leading multi-value framework through the Water Industry Research Council. We can learn from other sectors, like rail, that are pushing ahead toward digital transformation. Yet without looking beyond financial capital and legacy ways of working, we risk misunderstanding the necessary compromises, and in turn, fail to integrate real insight into our decision making.

That’s why the way we integrate data and technology matters. At Atkins, we focus our work to meet the contextual challenges of our clients and apply the most appropriate solutions: user-centric, product agnostic, and forward-thinking. Ultimately, organisations are complex, balancing multiple priorities. What organisations need to know above all is that they’re investing in the right thing, at the right time, whilst deriving the most value and performance from their existing assets. Data and digital can generate enormous insight, and insight is a foundation for intelligence. 

AMP8 will precipitate a unique and unparalleled level of change. Yet the challenge of managing the conundrum of compliance, climate change and sustainability is still huge. Systems thinking opens new opportunities to deploy repeatable, scalable, and integrated solutions, owning rather than avoiding the difficulty ahead. For catchment management worthy of a low-carbon, sustainable future, it’s time for a new approach.