Climate change represents a challenge for rural people in West and Central Africa, hence adapting small-scale irrigation to climate change is a priority for their future.

Africa is becoming highly vulnerable to climate change, as it will impact both the demand and the availability of water for agriculture, affecting the proportion of people suffering from insecure access to water. Smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. For them, small-scale irrigation and other forms of agricultural water management will become critical in building resilience to increased climate variability.

Find out more about ideas and solutions to the problems faced by those in West and Central Africa due to climate change here.

Prolonged heavy rainfall over the winter of 2015 has shown how devastating flooding can be to homes, businesses and critical infrastructure. With predictions that localised flooding will become an ever more common occurrence, how prepared is Northern Ireland to manage flood risk?

Read more with the new blog post from Des McKibbin here.

The outlook for September is for river flows to be within the normal range for the majority of the UK, with normal to above normal flows in central southern England. Flows in north western England are likely to be normal to above normal over the next three months. In the northern Permo-Triassic sandstone aquifers, groundwater levels are likely to remain above normal to exceptionally high throughout September, whilst levels across the rest of the UK are likely to be normal to above normal for the next three months.

Read the full Outlook here.

Accredited training for water and environmental industry practitioners.

As the UK recovers from the impact of flooding and coastal storms, following the wettest winter in almost 250 years, society is recognising the importance of understanding and managing risks to our environment in the face of increased frequency of extreme weather and climate change.

In partnership with JBA Consulting, a specialist water environment and flood risk management consultancy, we have developed flexible and accessible training for water and environmental practitioners focused on the application of technical skills and best practice techniques.

Find out more here.

The UK Government has released a review of flood risk assessment, reductions in the likelihood of flooding, and ways make the country as resilient as possible to flooding. The reports says, "In the light of the severity of recent events, and the risk that these or similar events will occur again, it is appropriate to reconsider our approaches to assessing flood risk, to reducing the likelihood of flooding, and to making our nation as resilient as possible to flooding."

You can read the full report here.

The Chronology of British Hydrological Events (CBHE) is back on line at cbhe.hydrology.org.uk/.

This is a public repository for hydrological facts of the type that come from texts rather than tables. It is an attempt to bring into searchable view on the Web as much material as possible so that the spatial extent of events, and their relative severity, can be assessed. Every hydrological circumstance from flood to drought, from instantaneous to prolonged, from rain reaching the ground to the return of runoff to the sea is to be covered.

Visit the webpage here.

Environment Secretary Andrea Leadsom announced on 3^rd September plans to ban the sale and manufacture of cosmetics and personal care products containing tiny pieces of plastic, commonly known as ‘microbeads’.

Each year billions of tiny beads end up in our seas from a range of products such as face scrubs, toothpastes and shower gels. These beads build up in the marine environment and can be swallowed by sea life, including fish and crustaceans.

Find out more about the ban here.

NERC and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are inviting applications from UK scientists to attend a jointly organised workshop with the Indian Department of Science and Technology (DST), in Delhi on 17 - 18 November 2016. Over two days the aims of the workshop will be: 

1. To define the scope of a potential new UK/India interdisciplinary programme focussed on research contributing to improved water quality, and through this support the economic development and welfare of India.
2. To facilitate links between the UK and Indian research communities in the area of water quality research.

Applications from researchers working in the fields of water quality, water engineering and related disciplines are welcome. It is expected that approximately 20 participants from across the NERC and EPSRC research communities will be invited. NERC and EPSRC will try to ensure a balance of different disciplines/expertise and the number of attendees from the same institution.

For more details please visit here. 

The outlook for August is for river flows to be normal to above normal in many areas of the UK, particularly in parts of western Britain.  Over the next three months, river flows are more likely to be within the normal range, and normal to above normal in East Anglia.  The outlook for groundwater levels in August is for a continuation of normal to above normal levels across most of the aquifers in the UK.  Groundwater levels are expected to remain above normal over the next three months in some aquifers in northern Britain.

Read the full Outlook here.

In an article for Water & Wastewater Treatment, Honorary Vice-President of CIWEM, Alastair Moseley puts forward the case for whole the catchment approach to flood risk to include protection at the level of individual properties.

He says, "Property level protection offers water companies an opportunity to reduce flood mitigation solution cost through a balanced catchment management approach that includes targeted property level protection balanced with associated smaller scale hydraulic improvements to the sewer network. At the same time a higher degree of customer satisfaction is possible leading to a lower SIM score, positive ODI outcomes and significant cost savings."

You can read the full article here.

The UK Space Agency International Partners programme has set aside £150m for projects to harness space knowledge, expertise and capability to provide a sustainable, economic or societal benefit to undeveloped nations and developing economies. The UK Space Agency will award grants to successful industrial and academic partners to run projects addressing real-world problems.

The strategic call includes: “Saving Lives and Safeguarding Development through Reducing the Impact of Natural Disasters” other environment related part of the call include Early Warning for Flooding, Illegal logging, Marine pollution.

More information can be found here.

The specific aim of the Innovation Projects Open Call is to increase and accelerate the uptake and impact of NERC funded research outputs by supporting translational and knowledge exchange activity which delivers direct tangible and demonstrable benefits to end users, particularly businesses.

Funds will be used to support projects which focus upon generating user applicable outputs from past and/or current NERC supported research and which translates them into outcomes that achieve impact.

NERC have added two further directed funding opportunities:

1. Soil security
2. Water risks to global food supply chains, ecosystems and communities

The call closes at 16:00 on 27 September 2016.

To find out more and to apply, please visit the NERC website.

A major new research facility which will allow scientists to discover more sustainable and affordable ways to treat wastewater has been opened at a sewage treatment works in the north east.

Newcastle University’s new Biological Engineering: Wastewater Innovation at Scale (BE:WISE) research facility is a European first in large-scale wastewater treatment research using bacteria.

The new facility - based at Northumbrian Water’s sewage treatment plant at Birtley, near Gateshead, will play a key role in improving how sewage is treated, by speeding up the transition from existing energy-intensive treatment processes to low carbon alternatives that have lower running costs.

Read the full story here

Applications by 16:00 on Friday 1 July 2016

NERC is offering a free-to-exhibit opportunity for researchers to have an exhibition stand or run public engagement activities as part of our Into The Blue showcase, which is taking place in Manchester during October half-term (25-29 October 2016). Visitors to the event will be a broad public audience, primarily focused on families and young people.

The showcase will comprise about 40 stands, as well as stage and discussion space, both inside and outside an aircraft hangar. Through the exhibition stands, talks, debates and discussions, the event will engage visitors with the wonders of the natural world and the process of doing research. 

More information can be found here.

Applications to attend workshop closes: 27^th June 2016      

Closing date: 16:00 on Tuesday 6^th September

As part of the GCRF, NERC, AHRC & ESRC invite proposals to address the challenge of Building Resilience in developing countries.

The focus is on how to build resilience in relation to both sudden and slow-onset environmental hazards (e.g. land-degradation, deforestation, drought, hurricanes, climate change) taking into account the intersections and relationships with other contexts such as conflict and fragility, poverty and famine, urbanisation, economics and health/disease risks. All proposals are expected to take an inter-disciplinary approach, bringing together environmental science with social science and arts and humanities.

The call will fund foundation-building activities that: stimulate the creation of inter-disciplinary international research communities; enable collaborations with beneficiaries and user organisations; define research questions and test new inter-disciplinary ideas and approaches. 

There will be a workshop on 19th July 2016 to provide more information on the call and facilitate collaborations between academics from different disciplines and between academics, beneficiaries and users.

You can find out more information about this opportunity here.

Closing date for proposals: 16:00 on 9 August 2016

NERC is inviting proposals under the Soil Security programme for research projects costing between £150k and £250k (80% full economic cost), and of up to 24 months' duration.

The projects will complement the existing portfolio of research and address the goals of the programme to seek an improved and predictive understanding of:

• the ability of soils to perform multiple functions in different contexts and at different scales, and
• their ability to resist, recover and adapt to perturbations, such as those caused by land use change and extreme climatic events.

The Soil Security programme is a NERC-led five-year research programme, with support from the Scottish Government, the Biotechnology & Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra). 

More information about this opportunity can be found here.

Closing date: 16:00 on 24 June 2016

NERC, the Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) and The Rockefeller Foundation are working together towards the ambitious goal of identifying the urgent research priorities and innovation challenges that may inform and catalyse a paradigm shift in our global approach to sustainable development. The nature of our 21st Century development challenges requires a shift in thinking and action that will better prepare us for future challenges, while enabling more effective development interventions today.

The inspiration for our collaboration is the core premise that the environment-human relationship must be central to our sustainable development solutions, recognising that maintaining the resilience of our ecosystems, the security of natural resources and the stability of Earth's life-support systems is necessary for humans to thrive. The work will be framed by the current global context, including in particular the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), now termed 'UN Global Goals'.

NERC is seeking an individual or team to produce a synthesis of past and current research and innovation relating to the policy landscape surrounding the environment-human relationships and systems that interact across the UN Global Goals.

For more information and details of how to apply click here.

The outlook for June is for normal to below normal river flows for northern and western areas of the UK, following a dry spring and a dry start to June. In parts of southern and eastern England, where spring has been wetter, June flows and groundwater levels are likely to be normal to above normal. Over the next three months, flows are likely to be normal to below normal across much of the country. In places where groundwater levels are currently above normal, such as central southern England and parts of northern Britain, this situation is likely to persist through the summer. This is likely to also lead to above normal summer flows in some groundwater dominated catchments in the south and east.  

You can read the full Outlook here.

Birmingham has come ninth in a list of the world’s best cities for sustainable water management – top for the UK – with Rotterdam, Copenhagen and Amsterdam ranking highest globally.

The research carried out by Arcadis and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) ranked 50 of the world’s top cities by their score against three factors: the resilience of the water system, the efficiency of water use and the quality of its water – with each of the dimensions broken down into a range of sub-indices.

You can see the full report here.

A new research study has found that almost all of England’s 200 chalk streams are in a “dismal state of decline” as the result of what the Sunday Times newspaper described as "a lethal cocktail of pollutants", including poorly treated sewage.

The 2015 Riverfly Census, undertaken by Salmon & Trout Conservation UK (S&TC UK) has identified that there were only 14 pristine, unimpacted sites out of a total of 120 sites sampled in the survey on chalk streams and rivers across England.

According to the fisheries charity, the threat to rivers has moved from industrial pollution to a range of subtler but equally damaging impacts from sources such as agricultural and road run-off, poorly treated sewage, septic tanks and discharges from watercress and fish farms.

Dr Nick Everall from Aquascience Consultancy, the organisation which carried out the survey,  commented:

“The national river survey showed a mixture of improving, stable and all too many sadly declining reaches in terms of overall ecological condition, environmental stresses and riverfly life in particular. Several rivers showed loss of condition with measures like mayfly species richness and freshwater shrimp population status over time.

You can read the full report here.