NewsNews – OpinionWater Breakthrough Challenge
February 13, 2025
Illustration by Arup for the EWSC project
This guest blog was originally published on Medium on 16 January 2025, and reposted with permission from the Enabling Water Smart Communities team.
This blog features learnings from the following Ofwat Innovation Fund projects:
Words by Kavindra Paranage and Tom Hargreaves.
There is growing recognition that top-down, technocratic solutions are no longer sufficient or appropriate to address contemporary water challenges. Traditional approaches that keep the public at arms-length whilst a narrow group of technical experts develop infrastructure-based solutions are increasingly seen as part of the problem rather than the solution.
Such approaches are seen to alienate communities leading to one-sided, transactional relationships that provide fertile ground for low levels of trust and resistance to new proposals and ideas.
To overcome these challenges, the Enabling Water Smart Communities (EWSC) project starts from the recognition that new kinds of stakeholder relationships are critical for the development, implementation and long-term success of more integrated and sustainable water management.
A key focus of the EWSC project is the exploration and development of new stewardship models for water resources and assets. Stewardship refers to long-term forms of collaborative planning and the responsible management of places and infrastructure.
New models of stewardship involve innovative forms of partnership between stakeholders, alternative forms of ownership, and governance structures designed to deliver more sustainable outcomes. To support the development of new stewardship models in the EWSC project and beyond, the UEA Research Team is conducting a series of six in-depth case studies.
These case studies explore a range of innovative approaches to stewardship and community engagement with water that are already being tested in various locations across the UK.
This article explores some early insights about the development of effective approaches to co-stewardship by drawing on three of our ongoing case studies: the Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative; Project Zero and Project Groundwater.
Case 1: The Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative
Our first case study, the Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative (CaSTCo), is a £7 million project funded by Ofwat, led by The Rivers Trust and United Utilities. It brings together over 24 partner organisations from across the UK.
CaSTCo aims to significantly improve the role of citizen science and community monitoring in gathering data that can act as solid evidence to underpin catchment management. In particular, the project is seeking to establish the first national framework for integrating water-environment data, modeling capabilities, and collaborative platforms, along with decision support tools to drive environmental improvement.
CaSTCo has launched citizen science and community monitoring initiatives at 10 demonstration sites around the UK. Each site is configured differently, as there is no single standardised approach for these initiatives. Our research has focused on how CaSTCo operates in the Wensum Catchment in Norfolk.
The CaSTCo demonstration project in the Wensum Catchment has been significantly shaped by the Wensum Catchment Partnership (WCP). The WCP serves as a forum that brings together a diverse range of professional and community stakeholders.
These include professional entities such as the Environment Agency, Natural England, Anglian Water, the University of East Anglia, Norfolk Rivers Trust, and Norfolk County Council, alongside community groups like the Upper Wensum Cluster Farm Group, the Angling Trust, the Hawk and Owl Trust, and individual farmers and landowners.
Together, these stakeholders identify, prioritise, and collaborate to develop action plans to address various water-related issues in the Wensum catchment. This collaborative structure allows community organisations to shape and influence initiatives such that they better align with and address their concerns.
In the Wensum catchment, CaSTCo runs a citizen science initiative that engages volunteers from the local area to monitor water quality in the River Wensum, a low gradient chalk river of national and international significance for wildlife. This initiative is closely aligned with the interests of local communities, particularly Anglers associations, which have a long history of involvement in water quality monitoring.
For example, in 2013, these associations partnered with the Environment Agency to monitor salinity levels during tidal surges. Associations like the Pike Anglers Club and the Norwich and District Pike Club, which are represented in the Wensum Catchment Partnership, have played a key role in setting the priorities for the CaSTCo-led citizen science and monitoring program. As a result, many community members with an interest in angling have volunteered to participate in the initiative (see Figure 1a and Figure 1b).
Figure 1a: Sample bucket & P checker
Figure 1b: Volunteer citizen scientist testing water samples and uploading site data
In our interviews with the organisers of the CaSTCo citizen science and community monitoring program, it became clear that the initiative has received strong support from local community members. The data collected through the program is regarded as high quality and is being used to inform decisions made by the Environment Agency.
A key advantage noted by the interviewees is the development of effective two-way communication between the community and government agencies. One interviewee pointed out that, while communities were previously frustrated by the perceived inaction of organisations like the Environment Agency in addressing pollution incidents, they now have a better understanding of the resource constraints faced by the agency.
This new awareness has helped shift the dynamic, with communities recognising that they, alongside the Environment Agency, can play an active role in collaborating process to reduce pollution incidents:
Often people feel frustrated that when they report a pollution-related incident to the Environment Agency, we don’t appear to do anything. But, from the agency’s point of view, they have a regulatory structure and can’t take action against anyone based on one infraction. And then the problem gets dismissed, because the Environment Agency is under-resourced, and it can’t do any follow up on the issue. But if you’re a tenacious citizen scientist, you can continue to observe and monitor a site, and keep flagging that things have gone bad again, until the Environment Agency ramps things up a notch. So, the citizen scientist realises not only how the Environment Agency works, but that they themselves are part of a process that is ensuring things get done.
Similarly, the Environment Agency has benefited from the high-quality data produced by citizen scientists. Because local citizens are more familiar with the specific point sources of pollution, they can provide more locally informed, detailed, and accurate information about where, when, and how pollution occurs.
This enables the Environment Agency to create more precise maps of pollution incidents, which improves their ability to target interventions and develop more effective responses to pollution management.
Case 2: Project Zero
Our second case, Project Zero, is funded through the Ofwat Innovation Fund seeking to generate new and more effective approaches to sustainable water management across the UK.
The program aims to achieve water neutrality in new housing developments, ensuring that the total water demand from these sites does not increase despite additional homes being built. Affinity Water, the lead partner of Project Zero, works with various stakeholders to balance water consumption through demand reduction and offsetting strategies.
A key site for this program is the Bidwell West housing development (containing 908 homes) in Bedfordshire, where Affinity Water, in collaboration with Independent Water Networks Limited (IWNL) and other partners, launched a targeted behaviour change campaign. IWNL operates water and wastewater networks at this and other development sites, helping deliver the project’s goals. The campaign encourages residents to reduce their water use by adopting simple but effective water-saving practices.
Recognising that many behaviour change initiatives are done to communities rather than with them, Affinity Water sought to take a different approach by giving communities a more active role in the process right from the start. Accordingly, the campaign began by exploring what the community was already doing and worked with residents to map the different ways they were already saving water, such as using water-efficient appliances or taking shorter showers (see Figure 2).
Figure 2: Highest impact/most feasible actions, which has the greatest potential for savings
These behaviors were then ranked according to two factors: first, how effective each water-saving action was, and second, the likelihood of adoption by different types of households. In-depth qualitative workshops were also held with current and potential residents of the development. These workshops aimed to understand community motivations for saving water, how people manage their daily water use, and general attitudes and values to water conservation.
After gathering this information and mapping the water-saving practices, the organisers ranked the behaviours based on their potential for maximising water savings. Using this data, they developed a series of semi-customised pledges for residents to choose from. Each household was encouraged to adopt a pledge, such as taking shallow baths or half-filling the kettle, to help reduce their water footprint. Affinity Water then held a launch event to promote the initiative, where attendees were encouraged to sign up for pledges on the spot. The event was widely publicised, with particular attention given to those who committed to specific water-saving actions.
The success of this behaviour change initiative is exemplified by Bidwell West becoming the world’s first water-positive housing development. Despite the addition of new homes, net water consumption decreased, demonstrating the effectiveness of the community-driven approach. This outcome clearly signals that working with and integrating residents’ views into the design and implementation of water-saving strategies can lead to significant, measurable reductions in water use, setting new standards for sustainable housing developments.
Case 3: Project Groundwater
Finally, our third case study is Project Groundwater, a six-year programme working with communities in nine high-risk groundwater flood areas of the Chiltern Hills and Berkshire Downs.
It is led by Buckinghamshire Council in partnership with five other local authorities and community flood groups. The project has committed £1 million (15% of its total budget) to community engagement, partnering with the charity Groundwork to implement engagement efforts.
Project Groundwater is structured around multiple workstreams, some of which focus on working directly with communities to co-develop mitigation strategies for groundwater flooding, while others concentrate on developing and testing new technologies and approaches. The project has reached out to communities across nine areas to inform and educate them and thus inspire more engagement with groundwater flooding issues. Engagement levels have varied across different communities.
One notable example of co-stewardship emerged from the Pang Valley in Berkshire, where the project focused on improving groundwater flood mitigation efforts through close collaboration with local residents.
The Pang Valley was one of the pilot areas identified by Project Groundwater as being at significant risk of groundwater flooding. However, the valley was already home to a well-established, volunteer-led group called the Pang Valley Flood Forum (PVFF).
The PVFF had been actively involved in flood resilience efforts long before the start of Project Groundwater, building strong local networks and collecting extensive data on the region’s flood characteristics (see Figure 3). This pre-existing organisation and local knowledge provided a solid foundation for Project Groundwater’s work in the area.
Figure 3: A screenshot of the datasets available on the PVFF website
Rather than introducing new interventions from external experts or authorities, Project Groundwater prioritised regular collaboration with key figures from the PVFF. This approach aimed to support and expand upon the initiatives already developed by the community. As outlined in Project Groundwater’s Engagement Plan for Pang Valley, the focus was on enhancing the group’s capacity while learning from the local knowledge and data the PVFF had accumulated over years of experience:
It is important to explore and identify the best courses of action for the project to take in order to present the most value in increasing resilience in Pang Valley, given the existing initiatives and organisation surrounding flooding in the area. It will also be important to collaborate going forwards and ask the group how the project can best help them.
All three cases provide examples of how community involvement as co-stewards can play a crucial role in advancing sustainable water management.
This article has reported on emerging insights from our case study research. Further case studies are planned, and more in-depth research with residents is also yet to take place. Nonetheless, across the three cases, a number of important lessons about how to engage communities as co-stewards have started to emerge.
Lesson 1: Recognise existing community engagement with water and tailor strategies accordingly
The case studies illustrate the importance of first understanding how communities are already engaging with sustainable water management before introducing new approaches.
Community engagement programmes often start by assuming that communities aren’t engaging with water and that such engagement thus needs to be instigated. Instead, our case studies have shown that communities are often already actively working by themselves to bring about more sustainable water management.
In Project Zero it was critical to recognise the existing water efficiency measures many households were already undertaking. In Project Groundwater it was vital to be informed by and responsive to existing community action rather than adopting a onesize-fits-all approach to engagement. Recognising and building upon existing community practices is a critical aspect of effective co-stewardship.
Starting from a position of mutual respect helps to facilitate a more trusting and collaborative relationship that can encourage communities to take an even more active role in managing water sustainably.
Lesson 2: Value community expertise and actively incorporate their input
A second key lesson from our cases is the emphasis on valuing community expertise.
In Project Groundwater, the organisers built on the work already undertaken by community flood forums rather than introducing entirely new flood mitigation measures. Similarly, in CaSTCo, collaboration with the Wensum Catchment Partnership was crucial in shaping the citizen science and community monitoring initiative allowing the community’s knowledge of point-source pollution to improve the accuracy of water quality maps and demonstrating how local expertise can enhance project outcomes.
Too often, community engagement initiatives still assume that communities suffer from a deficit of information and knowledge and need specialists to educate and inform them. Local community knowledge and expertise is assumed not to exist or is denied and ignored.
Instead, our case studies have shown the value of acknowledging existing community knowledge and action, and how working with and alongside it can act as the basis of more successful long-term relationships crucial for effective co-stewardship.
Lesson 3: Enable communities to lead in developing solutions
Across the three case studies, a recurring factor for success has been allowing communities to take the lead in shaping solutions to local water management challenges.
In Project Groundwater, the Pang Valley Flood Forum played a central role in guiding flood mitigation efforts based on their existing knowledge. Similarly, in CaSTCo, community stakeholders such as the Wensum Catchment Partnership were given the responsibility to direct citizen science initiatives.
Project Zero also demonstrated this by involving residents in water-saving pledges, letting them choose and commit to practices that best suited their circumstances.
These examples underscore the importance of not rushing in with pre-formed and inflexible solutions. Rather, developing effective co-stewardship demands engaging with communities early to ensure their concerns are properly understood and then allowing communities to actively drive the design and development of solutions to ensure they are responsive to their unique contexts.
Lesson 4: Foster honest and open dialogue through transparent sharing of information and resources
Our case studies highlight the importance of local authorities, water companies and government agencies initiating open and honest dialogue with communities and sharing information transparently. This can take several forms.
In Project Zero, planners provided communities with important contextual information about the water-saving potential of specific behaviours (e.g., how much water can be saved by taking shorter showers), enabling residents to make informed decisions about which practices to adopt.
Similarly, in CaSTCo, the Environment Agency openly shared its resource constraints with the citizen science community, explaining how their data would be used. This transparency allowed the citizen scientists to understand that the Environment Agency would struggle to act on its own and without their help.
In both of these cases, the project organisers began from a position of humility and honesty about their own limitations and constraints. Rather than presenting themselves as having all the expertise and knowing all the answers already, they actively approached communities to seek input and collaboration and then used the expertise and resources they did have to develop and support solutions based on novel forms of partnership and co-stewardship.
This report highlights the ongoing efforts to develop and implement innovative co-stewardship models across various parts of the UK water sector.
While our work is still in progress, it is clear that attempts to foster collaborative approaches between communities, local authorities, and water companies are already underway, with promising early results.
As we continue our research, the remaining case studies will explore further examples of stewardship and community engagement, contributing to a deeper understanding of how these approaches can drive sustainable water management in the future.
Kavindra Paranage is a Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia and an affiliate at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute. His work focuses on public participation in the water sector, integrated water management, and the critical geographies of water policy. Drawing from Science and Technology Studies, Kavindra is committed to fostering democratic engagement and sustainable water practices.
Tom Hargreaves is an Associate Professor at the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia. He is a member of the Science, Society, and Sustainability (3S) Research Group, with a focus on sustainability transitions, societal engagement, and energy and water innovations. Tom’s interdisciplinary work addresses the critical intersections of energy and water, contributing to just and effective transitions in resource management.
