Background:

Tools and data are used by Catchment Partnerships to inform river basin planning and aid decision making.  However, uptake is often limited by the capacity of the Catchment Host, and (due to funding) the capacity of the partnership to identify and evaluate new and emerging tools, monitor developments to existing tools, or advance skills to use the tools at a higher level.

Previous work from Natural Course to address this has included review and refine third party knowledge assessment in River Basin Management Plans, a review of suitability of predictive and certainty tools required for facilitating multiple benefit investment and increasing the technical capacity of Catchment Partnerships to use tools and data to ensure they become embedded in the routine functioning of organisations.

What we are doing:

A national led support structure is now in place and working well within the North West River Basin District (NWRBD), so we will capitalise on our previous work and further increase the capacity of Catchment Partnerships to use data and tools at a more advanced level.

The plan is to upskill the Catchment Host organisations so they can take full advantage of new developments and transform the use of data and tools into evermore standard working practices, financed under projects.

We will develop specific training packages, however the support will be flexible to adapt to emerging needs and different levels of need between the partnerships.

The Rivers Trust Data and GIS team will provide national level support and advice (technical or otherwise) through 1:1 sessions, a help desk for ad hoc queries, regional support sessions and training packages.  They will also ensure strong links are maintained with any new approaches developed through the national level Catchment Based Approach (CaBA), and that new and emerging tools are identified, evaluation and disseminated to Catchment Partnerships in the NWRBD.

Who else is involved?

The Rivers Trust and Catchment Partnership Hosts.

Project location:

North West River Basin District.

Latest update:

Please check back later.