Abstract
The policy of the water sector demands integrated and resilient asset management. The majority of current research focuses on urban or community asset systems. To provide a fully integrated approach, one needs to delineate the focus of asset management at a catchment scale, to include the natural capital. The research described in this paper introduces such an approach, with the Environmental Regional Input-Output (E-RIO) analysis at its core.The novelty of the work is the conceptualisation of a catchment as a complex asset system, comprising of multiple subsystems. This expands the application of Industrial Ecology and functional modelling techniques in Integrated Catchment Management and Water Accounting. The Catchment Metabolism modelling schema created in this paper serves asset, water resources and catchment management purposes. The schema forms the grounds for structured collaboration among experts for integrated water resources planning and decision-making. In this paper the process of creating the modelling schema along with the techniques used are presented. A ‘live’ industrial example from the UK water sector (Poole Harbour Catchment) is used to demonstrate its application.
Highlights
The World Forum for Natural Capital relates the poor management of the natural environment with catastrophic consequences on ecosystems productivity, human wellbeing and financial resilience (Natural Capital Initiative 2015)
The whole-system approach developed is based on the principles of integrated catchment management (ICM), water accounting and environmental regional input-output analysis (E-RIO)
The research described in this paper provided a novel, structured and systemic approach for asset management schemes in the water sector
Summary
The World Forum for Natural Capital (i.e. the world’s natural systems, such as aquatic systems land, and their deriving services) relates the poor management of the natural environment with catastrophic consequences on ecosystems productivity, human wellbeing and financial resilience (Natural Capital Initiative 2015). The whole-system approach developed is based on the principles of integrated catchment management (ICM), water accounting and environmental regional input-output analysis (E-RIO) It builds on a combination of concepts and methods that have been reviewed and approved for their ability to address sustainability issues (Little et al 2016; Ma et al 2015; Paterson et al.2015; Xu et al 2015; Rudell et al 2014), and shape optimised planning strategies (Ma et al 2015; Rudell et al 2014; Daniels et al 2011) for better resource efficiency. The paper concludes by discussing the future steps for the practical application of the schema in the UK water sector
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