Water resources security

This chapter describes the evolution of water resources research at Wallingford. There are two primary themes. The first describes research aimed at estimating the low flow regimes within gauged and ungauged basins. These were collaborative regional or national scale projects funded by environmental agencies where the research output would often be used by their staff to solve design problems. Specific application of these techniques included abstraction and effluent licensing, setting environmental flows, irrigation, designing small hydropower schemes, navigation and estimating drought frequency. The research often addressed national and international water law and policy requirements most notably the implementation of the Catchment Abstraction Management Strategy (CAMS) in England and Wales and the European Water Framework Directive. The second theme was where external clients posed specific and usually very challenging water resource problems, often requiring innovative solutions. Much of this work was undertaken in overseas countries rather than in the UK