The Centre for Sustainable Water Management

The Centre for Sustainable Water Management (CSWM) seeks to deliver cross-disciplinary science in water-related research areas. Faculty and Research staff in the Centre uindertake research to develop scientific tools and techniques to enable the uncertainties associated with land and water use problems to be addressed in the development of sustainable water management strategies.

Research staff in the Centre are actively engaged in building solutions to current and future water related issues such as

• hydrological and hydrochemical modelling
• field-based land and water monitoring
• the development and application of new technologies
• the sociology of water resource allocation and water consumption

Sustainable Water Management: The Science Need

Water is a "landscape agent" and is involved in a number of interdependent processes including

• soil erosion
• transport of nutrients and pollutants
• providing habitat for aquatic biota
• provides a connective network within the landscape

CSWM addresses these issues in sustainable water management with careful consideration of their interdependencies . This makes the research undertaken by the Centre complex, dealing with uncertain science that integrates knowledge at different spatial scales and timeframes. The research undertaken by CSWM addresses both social and natural science objectives in the investigation of sustainable water management strategies.

The N8 and Sustainable Water Use

"The global market for environmental technologies is set to rise to $700 billion by 2010 and $800 billion by 2015 - 34% of this global market is related to water technologies"
UKTI market report 2006

Northern England 's eight research-intensive universities have formed a powerful alliance, known as N8, to help northern businesses become more competitive by using the research excellence of the universities to innovate faster and take a larger share of growth markets.

The Universities of Durham , Lancaster , Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle , Sheffield and York have identified five areas of research excellence. Key amongst them is Sustainable Water Use which will address research and business opportunities in this rapidly growing global market.

Professor Louise Heathwaite, Co-Director of the Centre for Sustainable Water Management, which is part of the Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC), is the academic lead for the N8 Sustainable Water Use theme. Dr Mark Bacon, Director of Enterprise and Business Partnerships (LINK) in LEC is developing the science to business case and hosts the N8 Sustainable Water Use business development team.

The N8 Water Group has developed a number of core themes with business and industry which include:

• Water footprints - driving sustainable and efficient use of water in manufacturing
• EcoCities - urban regeneration and new build to meet the challenges of climate change
• Water for life - safe clean water for emerging technologies and delivering on our commitment to the UN Millennium Development Goals
• Catchment knowledge and technology integration