Teh, Tse-Hui; Peters, Helge; Collins, Alexandra; Landström, Catharina; Butler, Adrian; (2024) Catalysing change in an urban river catchment: Wealdstone Brook, London. CIRIA: London, UK.

Text X537F - Catalysing change in an urban river catchm.pdf - Published Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff Download (8MB)

Abstract

This guide details the findings and recommendations from two stakeholder workshops about the governance of water quality in the Wealdstone Brook urban river catchment in London. The water quality of the Wealdstone Brook suffers from persistent pollution primarily caused by sewage entering the water course through interconnected stormwater and foul water drainage systems as well as private misconnections. An initial survey found that weakly developed collaborative governance forms a barrier to implementing solutions for improving water quality, and that multiple stakeholders need to work together to raise funds and drive the execution of schemes. Analysis of survey responses shows a lack of integration and collaboration among catchment stakeholders as well as poorly defined responsibilities and an absence of leadership by company stakeholders with the capacity to deliver schemes. The first workshop created a shared understanding among catchment stakeholders of the various issues affecting water quality and its governance across the topic areas of organisation, funding, stormwater and foul water systems interaction, private misconnections, riparian ownership, housing development, commercial waste, sewer abuse, and surface water runoff. Addressing these issues requires combining company resources to secure funding for schemes and joint efforts to move projects forward that tackle the flooding/pollution issue. The second workshop had participants design and evaluate solutions that address these issues. Five different solution ideas were developed ranging from hands-on interventions to deal with waste and vegetation management to a comprehensive scheme addressing a range of infrastructure and environment issues in the catchment. The solutions detailed the governance models required to deliver tangible progress on the ground, defined responsibilities for planning and delivery, and emphasised the critical role of company stakeholders for the success of any project while acknowledging that the local community remains the focus for delivery. To ensure the implementation of solutions, recommendations include a community-centred, differentiated stakeholder engagement strategy. This strategy works towards rebuilding trust in collaborative catchment management by creating accountability between those organisations responsible for project delivery and community members.

Download activity - last month

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as CSVXMLJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONXMLCSV

Archive Staff Only

View Item