In the water utility sector, traditional asset management focusses on the maintenance and provision of physical assets (infrastructure) that allow water companies to deliver their services, meet their customers’ expectations and achieve their economic objectives. Nevertheless, the serviceability of the sector heavily depends on natural elements (e.g. rain, land). The importance of Natural Capital (i.e. the natural systems and their deriving ecosystem services) has been at the core of policy recommendations which have shaped regulatory changes in the water sector of England and Wales. Water companies are now required to explicitly account for and report their inter-dependencies on the natural environment and adopt systems-oriented approaches in their Asset Management Programmes (AMPs). These reforms will enable the sector to become resilient to the environmental and societal challenges faced at urban and rural contexts. Responding to the regulatory demands, the research introduces a novel and structured approach for integrating natural capital in the asset management portfolio of the water industry. The work is built on a transdisciplinary research framework and demonstrates that a new scale needs to be considered for the implementation of Holistic Asset Management: the water basin or catchment. A Catchment Metabolism modelling schema was created, grounded on the principles of Integrated Catchment Management and ecosystems services. The schema is based on the robust synthesis of concepts, tools and methods from a spectrum of disciplines. These include Industrial Ecology, Water Accounting, Environmental Regional Input-Output Analysis, hydrology, software engineering and functional modelling. Catchment Metabolism introduces a holistic perspective in asset management and expands its scope. The schema enables the conceptualisation, modelling and management of catchments as complex asset systems. It, thus, forms the ground for structured collaboration among experts for integrated water resources planning and decision-making. The schema allows for the design and implementation of catchment-based strategies and the assessment of their environmental performance. An industrial case study for a pilot catchment system (Poole Harbour Catchment) is used to demonstrate the application of the Catchment Metabolism. Alternative strategies for nitrogen pollution mitigation are assessed. The application of winter cover crops across the catchment appears to be the optimum strategy. The case study demonstrates the practical and modular implementation of the schema, reveals its methodological strengths and limitations and evaluates its applicability in the asset management planning and decision-making of the water sector.

In the context of research highlighting the mixed performance of coastal climate change adaptation elsewhere, this thesis developed a modified Analysis-Awareness-Action (AAA) framework to evaluate local climate change adaptation in four coastal townships along the vulnerable southwest coast of Taiwan in order to derive recommendations for local adaptation framework development. This mixed-method research included an assessment of socioeconomic vulnerability through the development of a socioeconomic vulnerability indicator framework (SVIF) (‘Analysis’). This included a face-to-face questionnaire survey with the public to evaluate public awareness of climate change (‘Awareness’), public participation and community engagement in adaptation actions; and an expert workshop and follow-up survey to identify the challenges in local adaptation framework (‘Action’). Results of the study show that the AAA framework is not only a useful and relevant approach to contribute to local adaption in Taiwan, but can also serve as a reference for other threatened countries and people in Asia and non-member countries of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to respond to climate change. Results of the SVIF demonstrated that the SVIF was capable of judging location-specific susceptibility and resilience to climate change between different coastal communities. Results of the questionnaire revealed high levels of public concern about climate change, but generally public understanding is insufficient. Further scientific evidence and explanation is necessary to increase public understanding and knowledge of climate change. Many findings are consistent with the wider literature. For example, respondents favoured an emphasis on mitigation over adaptation; preventive and protection actions were seen as the most effective adaptation approaches and the immediate priority; potential cost and influence of specific govermental actions on communities may constrain participation. Additionally, cognitive, affective, and behavioural factors, which may influence local adaptation engagement, were identified. These suggest that a constructive dialogue and participatory process is needed with the public in order to increase community engagement in local adaptation. Finally, specific challenges for local adaptation framework development, related to political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental (PESTLE) perspectives were identified. As a result, it was recommended that there is a need for a range of improvements to the current system, including engaging other local organisations and private actors, developing specialist organisations, legislative acts, and considering multiple objectives in formulation of adaptation actions to eliminate the potential conflict of interest.

Nach der Europäischen Wasserrahmenrichtlinie sollen Ende 2015 die Oberflächengewässer und das Grundwasser einen »guten Zustand« aufweisen. Der Bericht informiert zum Stand der Maßnahmen und ihrer Umsetzung in Sachsen für die Bereiche Landwirtschaft und Wasserwirtschaft. Er verdeutlicht, dass die Maßnahmenprogramme nur dann erfolgreich umgesetzt werden können, wenn zur Erreichung der Bewirtschaftungsziele auch alle relevanten Qualitätskomponenten in ihrem Zusammenwirken betrachtet werden.

Corporate water risk is a function of resource dependence, which exposes firms to uncertainty. Firms rationally seek to reduce this risk, and this shapes their disclosure strategies. However, the consequence is that corporate water risk disclosure is becoming increasingly unfit for purpose. As current approaches begin to acquire institutional legitimacy and the path-dependent label of best practice, a status quo is becoming embedded, reinforced through mimetic behaviour. The agency problem that this creates is unchecked; in part because of the legitimacy acquired by the disclosure strategies, but also because of temporal myopia exhibited by investors, which contributes to unpredictable decision-making. The status quo also results in sub-optimal resource allocation, a problem that is compounded by the large and growing global infrastructure deficit for water supply and services. This thesis sets out a framework by which the disclosure of corporate water risk can be meaningfully evaluated by investors and other stakeholders; and proposes how the water infrastructure investment gap could be narrowed by the development and application of the corporate water return concept. The research builds on empirical foundations to offer new approaches that address the problems of the status quo. First, it empirically explores perceptions of best practice in terms of water risk disclosure, from the perspective of both listed firms and leading institutional investors (Chapters 3 and 4). Second, it proposes a methodology through which firms can disclose water risks in a systematic format; and advances corporate water return as a complementary concept to water risk, in order to catalyse corporate investment in water infrastructure (Chapters 5 and 6). Resource dependence theory, institutional theory, and stakeholder theory are combined to create a trio of integrative, explicative conceptual narratives that form the overarching thesis structure. The research also draws on other themes from economic geography, including proximity; strategic cognition; transaction costs; and real options theory.

In Britain, projected population rise and climate change threaten future water availability. UK water companies run education programmes to encourage more efficient usage, but these tend to focus on primary schools and adults, missing the opportunity to engage secondary school pupils as the next generation of homeowners and bill payers. Educational interventions also traditionally follow the theory of rational choice, envisaging learners as able to change their attitudes and behaviours in accordance with newly acquired information. Sociological research on social practices and ordinary consumption, however, sees water as playing an inconspicuous role in daily domestic activities. Technological infrastructure and prevalent social norms mould behaviour and limit the ability of water users to alter their consumption. This interdisciplinary thesis attempts to break the impasse between works from educational and sociological perspectives, using the theoretical lens of water citizenship. A review of current water education provision in the East Midlands region was undertaken, and a school-based study involving questionnaires, focus groups and exploratory lessons around water. The young people involved in the study tended to show ambivalence towards water conservation, despite general pro-environmental motivations. While some teenagers perceived they were ‘doing their bit’ for the environment, this tended to be limited to accepting and invoking ‘water saving tips’, and many teenagers eschewed water conservation altogether. These findings indicate that innovative educational programmes are needed to raise the standard of water literacy in the UK. This thesis argues firstly for making water use more ‘visible’ in daily activities, by deconstructing the routines and habits that use water, and by recognising the influences that social norms exert on water use. Secondly, it argues that educational initiatives for water literacy could develop young people’s sense of citizenship and responsibility towards water resources by connecting personal actions to impacts at local, national and global scales.

The process of determining outputs and outcomes plays a key role in the setting of global targets, in defining national sector policy and strategic plans and in ensuring a continuous, safe supply of affordable water. Each of these actions, are integrally linked by aggregated data sets generated through an effective monitoring and evaluation (M&E) process. This thesis examines the various components of M&E across three case studies: Global, Kenya and Uganda, including aspects such as whether roles and responsibilities are realistically assigned and whether there is a recurring set of core indicators being monitored and reported. The research has also sought to establish an evidence base of the associated costs and efficacy of use of M&E. Through purposive and snowball sampling, fieldwork was undertaken across the case studies with 85 key stakeholders. Programme, national and global level data sets were collected through structured literature reviews, document and data archive reviews, key informant and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis methods were applied. The results demonstrate that despite having a recurring global goal and associated target, the number and variety of indicators reported against has grown over time and at each level. In turn this is placing a burden on already resource constrained countries. Regardless of the various principles of harmonization and alignment, countries are still required to manage internally and externally driven parallel systems. Whilst the research suggests the costs of M&E are escalating, the full extent of this increase remains unknown as does the extent of efficacy of use of M&E. Despite evidence that country-led M&E processes are at some level achieving their objectives, with the continuing complexities of the sector particularly around the accompanying aid architecture, M&E is not currently ‘fit for purpose’ for use in the WASH sector and is unlikely to be providing value for money.

Anthropogenic climate change is arguably the greatest challenge of modern times posing significant risks to natural resources and the environment. Socio-economic change, severe droughts, and environmental concerns focus attention upon sustainability of water supplies and the ability of water utilities to meet competing demands worldwide. The 2012 Climate Change Risk Assessment identified water security as one of the most significant climate threats facing the UK. It is now recognised that household water demand management could offer a low regret adaptation measure (both financially and environmentally) given large uncertainties about future climate and non-climatic pressures. This thesis uses Anglian Water Services (AWS) Golden 100 dataset to explore the climate sensitivity of historic micro-component water-use. This work contributes to a larger integrated assessment of the South-East England water system under the EPSRC Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing Climate Coordination Network (ARCC CN). The Golden 100 is a metered record of 100 households daily water consumption by basin, bath, dishwasher, external, kitchen sink, shower, WC and washing machine use. The archive also includes socio-economic information for each household, dates of the year and daily time series of observed minimum temperature, maximum temperature, sunshine hours, soil moisture deficit, concurrent, and antecedent rainfall amounts. The methodology developed within this research provides a portable approach to error trapping, formatting and mining large, complex water sector datasets, for exploring the relative sensitivities of micro-component metered water-use to weather/non-weather variables. This research recognises both the importance of the choice to use a micro-component and the volume used. As such, logistic and linear generalised regression techniques are employed to explore the relative sensitivity of these two aspects of water-use to climatic and non-climatic variables. The 2009 UK Climate Projections (UKCP09) projections and climate analogues are then used to bound a climate sensitivity analysis of the most weather-sensitive micro-components using temperature and rainfall scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s. This research provides empirical evidence that the most weather sensitive micro-components are external and shower water-use. A key contribution of this research to existing knowledge is the non-linear response of likelihood and volume of external water-use to average air temperatures. There is an abrupt increase in the likelihood of external water-use on days above ~15??C. Climate sensitivity analysis further suggests that by the 2080s, under a hotter/drier climate, average unmetered households could be 8% more likely to use external-water and expend ~9 litres more per day during the summer. For the same parameters, high water users (defined here as the 90th percentile) could consume ~13 litres more external water per day. Importantly, this research has re-affirmed the relative importance of behavioural drivers of water-use as manifested by pronounced day of week and bank holiday signatures in both the likelihood and volume of use statistics. As such, this prompts future studies and water management efforts to consider the impact of behavioural drivers as well as climate. It must be recognised that the small sample size of the Golden 100 combined with the Hawthorn effect, self-selection and sample biases in factors such as socio-economic status, billing method and occupancy rate all limit the sample representativeness of the wider population. As such, any predictions based on the data must be treated as illustrative rather than definitive. Furthermore, the results are probably specific to the demographic and socio-economic groups comprising the sample. Nonetheless, this research sheds new light into water-use within the home thereby adding value to a dataset that was not originally collected with household-level, weather-related research in mind.

Since the 1970s Aragon has been at the centre of heated controversies over central government proposals to transfer water from the Ebro to Spain’s Mediterranean coastal regions and the scene of numerous mass demonstrations in opposition to these. Throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries the Ebro has been used and perceived by Aragonese regionalism, nationalism and aragonesismo in a variety of ways. This gives rise to the possibility that opposition to the transfer of water from the Ebro goes beyond purely economic and environmental considerations and evokes deeper nationalistic aspects which see it as an essential element of Aragonese identity, patrimonial wealth and natural national heritage. The Ebro had a prominent place in the thinking of the early twentieth century nationalist group as a life-giver and father figure of Aragonese identity and a symbol of territory, homeland, regional development and patrimonial wealth. Later defence of the Ebro against proposed water transfers has been used by Aragonese territorial parties to raise key aragonesista and nationalist issues, increase national awareness and assist in nation-building. The thesis shows how it has become inextricably interwoven with aspects such as identity, myths, symbols, heritage, collective memory and future economic prosperity and how threats to it, in the form of proposed water transfers, are used to stir up feelings of a ‘nationalistic’ nature, create a sense of grievance and injustice and make it a powerful ‘rallying symbol’, ‘crowd symbol’ and a ‘symbol of unity’. However, the analysis reveals many different derivations, contradictions, differences and paradoxes in how it is viewed in different periods and by different aragonesista and nationalist groups which detract from it reaching its full symbolic potential. To date, there have been no specific studies of the importance of the Ebro in aragonesismo and Aragonese nationalism. This thesis will contribute to knowledge on this aspect as well as to debates on sub-state nationalisms and the role of landscape and natural elements in nationalism and national identity.

To capture the ‘real world’ experience of institutions and policy within the Zambezi rural basin, the study highlights differences in perceptions of the policy and institutions of the water sector between those involved in management of the water sector and those using water for their livelihoods. The study is situated within the qualitative paradigm; its unit of analysis is the participants (members of households, policy makers and members of the Village Water Committee). The study has applied a grounded theory methodology (semi-structured interviews). Forty participants were interviewed in the Zambezi rural basin. The research highlights that, the National Water Supply and Sanitation Council as a national regulatory institution has not yet fully provided support in terms of regulatory framework that would enable the rural water sector to sustain the demand of the Zambezi rural basin of Zambia. Despite this, the National Water Supply and Sanitation Council have made some key progress in developing the suitable guidelines within the regulatory framework significant in the management of water sector. The study indicates that institutions such as the Village Water Committee are considered to be crucial for strengthening the water sector in the Zambezi rural basin if given a suitable legal status for its operational water activities. Furthermore, water supply and demand disparity among households in the Zambezi rural basin remains a challenge to be addressed. The study further highlights policy and institutions in terms of their effects on the quality of water and health status of households remain a major concern for the citizens.

The restoration of drained, afforested blanket bogs (forest-to-bog restoration) is an increasing management practice, due to recognition of both the nature conservation and carbon sequestration services provided by peatlands. Forest-to-bog restoration involves conifer felling (and harvesting) along with blocking of forestry drains. Research from conifer felling and drain blocking on open peatlands shows significant effects on pore- and stream- water quality, when practised separately. However, there is very little knowledge of the combination of both these practices in forest-to-bog restoration. This research investigated the effects of forest-to-bog restoration on pore-, surface-, stream- and river water quality in the short-term (0-1) years post-restoration, where the effects of restoration are disturbance-related. We also investigated restoration progress across a chronosequence of restoration sites using pore- and surface-water chemistry. Our results showed significant increases in DOC, phosphate, K and NH4+ (2-99 fold) in pore- and surface- water in the first year post-restoration, which may have implications for the recovery of bog vegetation. In streams significant increases in Fe (1.5 fold) and phosphate (4.4 fold) were found, with no significant impacts on concentrations in rivers or pass rates for drinking water or WFD standards. We also found no significant effects on aquatic carbon exports. However, as more restoration is carried out within the catchments and the proportion felled increases, greater impacts on streams and rivers may be observed. From our results, we recommend felling small percentages (3-23%) of stream and river catchments and the use of drain blocking and silt traps to retain sediment. We observed progress in recovery towards bog conditions across a chronosequence of restoration sites (aged 0-17 years); incomplete recovery of WTD and elevated NH4+ in porewater appeared the main barriers to restoration. Therefore, enhancements such as brash and needle removal and plough furrow blocking may be able to accelerate restoration.