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Our Work

Outreach

The MaRIUS project researchers want the project outputs to be as meaningful as possible to both the academic and user communities. In order for the project to realise its aims, and help move the UK towards a risk based approach to manage water resources with a particular regard for water scarcity, it is important that the project is known about widely, and the researchers to liaise with as many different types as of stakeholders as possible.

In order to maintain academic rigour, the project has the support of a team of international academic experts in drought and water scarcity research.

The project also benefits from the inputs of a number of experienced industry practitioners, who form the Stakeholder Advisory Group, and have committed to give their time to help guide the research and help bring their operational expertise to the research.

In addition to the specific Stakeholder Advisory Group, the project wishes to engage with as many interested parties in the subject of water management for drought, in order to understand the needs of as wide a group as possible. This wider group of contributors will be able to help the project by giving feedback and comments in open workshops and events on subjects such as what would be helpful to them when managing for the possibility of drought (information, datasets, methods) and also to test outputs such as the Dashboard, so that it is as suitable for the end-users needs as possible.

Past Events

  • October 2016: A project podcast is released of Prof Jim Hall, the MaRIUS project Principal Investigator, saying thank you to the citizen science volunteers of the ClimatePrediction.net group who have helped to run the drought simulation model runs for the MaRIUS project.

  • September 2016: The third Drought Symposium with international speakers was held followed by the third assembly of the International Advisory Board to advise the project researchers.

  • September 2016: A second meeting was held with water resource specialists at Southern Water and MaRIUS project researchers to explore common areas of interest. September 2016: Kevin Grecksch convened a scenario building workshop was held on the subject of Resilient Drought Management in England and Wales.

  • July 2016: Helen Gavin gave a summary presentation to Defra on behalf of the MaRIUS project to inform the water resources staff of the work being done in the project.

  • July 2016: Researchers from the MaRIUS project and the Historic Droughts project held a workshop session on Drought modelling and management at the RMetS/NCAS High Impact Weather and Climate Conference in Manchester, UK. The researchers included Dr Bettina Lange, Prof Jim Freer, Dr Lola Rey,and Dr. Richard Jones from the MaRIUS project, plus Katie Smith from the Historic Droughts project.

  • June 2016: Dr Dolores Rey presented a paper “Economic instruments for water management in Southern England” at the policy session “Water scarcity and drought management: the role of economic instruments in the EU and Australia scarcity” at the EAERE Conference, Zurich, Switzerland.

  • May 2016: Lola Rey presented a paper “Developing drought resilience in irrigated agriculture in the face of increasing water scarcity” at the Adaptation Futures 2016 Conference, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

  • June 2016: Project podcasts are released: Pam Berry introduces the work of the ecology team within the MaRIUS project exploring the impact of drought on ecosystems, and Benoit Guillod summarises the key work of the climate modellers of the project in generating drought event sets.

  • March 2016: Ian Holman spoke at the 2016 UK Irrigation Association conference, Peterborough, on the subject “Managing the risks, impacts, and uncertainty of drought”

  • January 2016: A project podcasts is released, of Jim Hall giving an introduction to the MaRIUS project.

  • December 2015: Eric Sarmiento delivers an overview of the human geography research into sociocultural perceptions and knowledge controversies in a project podcast.

  • December 2015: A meeting was held with Southern Water and certain MaRIUS project researchers to explore common areas of interest.

  • September 2015: The second Drought Symposium with international speakers took place followed by the third assembly of the International Advisory Board to guide the project researchers. A number of podcasts are created from the Symposium, including Lola Rey providing the evidence of increasing resilience in the irrigated agricultural sector, Paul Whitehead exploring the impact of drought on water quality, Benoit Guillod investigating drought in the western US, and Christina Cook outlining the research by the socio-legal team into drought governance arrangements.

  • May 2015: Researchers from the MaRIUS project gave presentations at the 2015 World Water Congress in Edinburgh, UK.

  • May 2015: The second Stakeholder Advisory Group meeting was held.

  • March 2015: Dolores Rey presented a paper “Water and Agriculture” at the workshop “Water as the Frontier of Agribusiness: Politico-Ecological and Socio-Economic Connections from Farms to Global Markets”, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

  • March 2015: Catharina Landström gives an overview to her human geography work in mapping drought knowledges in the UK as part of the SEED 2015 initiative.

  • March 2015: Jim Hall gave an address on the MaRIUS project at a CIWEM Central Southern meeting.

  • January 2015: The first Stakeholder Advisory Group meeting was held. The aim of the meeting is to consider and help identify areas and time points in the regulatory, policy, industry and business landscape where the outputs of the MaRIUS project could have the greatest influence in providing data or changing behaviours or outlooks.

  • December 2014: A project podcast is released of some early findings in the MaRIUS project by the Water Quality team. Gianba Bussi introduces the research being undertaken into algal modelling.

  • November 2014: Helen Gavin delivered a presentation on MaRIUS featured in the Rivers Trust’s Autumn Seminar 2014: Collaborative catchment management – building a resilient ecosystem in Norfolk.

  • September 2014: The first Drought Symposium was held in Magdalen College, Oxford, with speakers from the International Advisory Board, held followed by the third assembly of the International Advisory Group to guide the project researchers.

  • May 2014: The first workshop for interested parties took place and served to launch the project following its inception in April 2014. A large number of people attended, and wished to find out more.

Collaborations & Partnerships

  • The project team have participated in a 2-day workshop with some of its International Advisory Board in September 2014, 2015 and 2016 to ensure the academic work is as rigorous and as excellent as can be. The International Advisory Board members present were: Christopher Duffy, Penn State University, USA; Greg Garfin, Arizona University, USA; Peter Wallbrink, CSIRO, Australia; and Lee Godden, Melbourne University, Australia. Further to this, on a separate occasion, Dr Victoria Bell, and Dr Ali Rudd met with Dr Narendra Tuteja, Bureau of Meteorology, Australia, to discuss drought research and findings.

  • Dr Eric Sarmiento and Dr Catharina Landstrom have met with and interviewed representatives of local groups to prepare for the environmental competency and community modelling group work in order to meet human geography research objectives.

  • Dr Catharina Landstrom, Dr Eric Sarmiento and Prof. Sarah Whatmore created an Environmental Competency group with locals in the Kennet Catchment, Berkshire. This is a key multidisciplinary approach to exploring knowledge and issues surrounding drought and water scarcity. The researchers participating in the Environmental Competency group cover human geography, legislation/governance, water quality, and water resources modelling.

  • Dr Catharina Landstrom, Dr Eric Sarmiento and Prof Sarah Whatmore created a Community Modelling approach with local groups in the River Lea catchment, London. This group will examine community modelling approaches to engage local groups.

  • Dr Thorsten Wagener and Dr Jude Musuuza, University of Bristol, have been working with Dr Duffy (Penn State University, USA) and his team to improve the PIHM model and its representation of low flows and groundwater resources to drought.

  • Dr Thorsten Wagener and Dr Jude Musuuza, University of Bristol, have been working with Prof Stefan Kollet (University of Bonn, Germany) to perform a model inter-comparison study of the main integrated mechanistic hydrology models currently available, using the synthetic catchment (used in Maxwell et al., 2014 WRR (doi:10.1002/2013WR013725))

  • Dr Jaume Freire, Dr Chris Decker and Prof. Jim Hall, University of Oxford, have made contact with University of Leiden, Netherlands, to access a critical database for research into the economic effect of drought.

  • Dr Mohammad Mortazavi-Naeini, University of Oxford, has been working with staff from Thames Water to understand its distribution system in order to create a water simulation model that best simulates the Thames Catchment, for drought analyses.

  • Prof Thorsten Wagener and Dr Gemma Coxon have been working as part of the Panta Rhei Working Group ‘Drought in the Anthropocene’.

  • Members of the project team met with staff from Southern Water in order to share ideas for collaboration and ensure the utility of the MaRIUS outputs to water resource practitioners

  • Dr Christina Cook, Dr Bettina Lange and Dr Catharina Landstrom have met and interviewed representatives of water companies, and environmental regulators to discuss the research and gain their insights in order to meet social science objectives.

  • Paul Whitehead and Dr Gianbattista Bussi met with Thames Water to discuss water quality issues and agree on joint work investigating carbon issues in the upper Severn under drought conditions using INCA C model

  • Paul Whitehead and Dr Gianbattista Bussi are working with Prof. Martyn Futter, Sweden, on carbon issues from peatlands under drought conditions