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Integrated Catchment Management
A holistic approach to managing our water resources to benefit people and the environment.
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Our Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) approach, as part of Jacobs’ wider OneWater framework, brings organizations together to co-plan, design, fund and deliver sustainable water catchments through all stages of planning and implementation. This embeds the realization of wider environmental and social benefits through total value assessments that consider a whole host of sustainable and innovative solutions.
Why is this approach needed?
As our climate changes, we see an urgent need to accelerate plans for both now and the future to adapt and find solutions to risks like flooding and drought. Additionally, customer expectations are changing, meaning there has never been more focus on ensuring healthy watercourses and thriving habitats. The task in hand is so great that organizations and governments across Europe, as well as globally, are realizing that their current approaches to planning and managing water and landscapes need to change. We all need to progress towards more sustainable catchment management and to halt environmental decline.
How does Integrated Catchment Management work?
Integrated Catchment Management is a process and a mindset where catchment decisions are made collaboratively using a systems-thinking approach. Benefits and impacts from all relevant stakeholders' perspectives are considered and valued. Social value and natural capital tools are used to help maximize shared benefits, including biodiversity net gains and ecosystem services. This is combined with developing funding strategies to deliver actions prioritized in a social, economic, environmental and political context.
A comprehensive framework for an integrated catchment management approach.
Implementing nature-based solutions, for example, alongside digital technologies and traditional “grey” solutions, can help deliver best-value catchment outcomes from planning through to delivery and at a variety of scales. By bringing together stakeholders, including catchment-based approach hosts who are striving for the same, and a wide portfolio of partners early on, we aim to optimize available co-funding and finance opportunities, including from the private sector. This will deliver more outcomes, enhance climate resilience, support nature recovery and share benefits, costs and risks among a wider portfolio of partners and stakeholders.
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Lee Pitcher, Director of Water and Environment, Europe
Lee is an award-winning executive with over 20 years’ experience in the water industry. He is respected for his strong social values and his dedication to environmental improvement through partnership working. Starting on the front line in the industry, Lee is now Jacobs’ Director of Water and Environment for Europe with a keen interest in integrated catchment management. Prior to joining Jacobs, he was a Board member for the industry-leading Living with Water program where, along with his team, he delivered several transformational projects to pioneer developments in urban water resilience.
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Phil Raynor, Director of Operations, Market Solutions Lead (Europe) – Water
Phil brings 21 years of working in the environmental and flood risk industry. With core training in the environmental sciences and extensive experience in a wide range of technical areas, Phil is heavily involved in both the delivery and technical assurance of major U.K. infrastructure projects. Phil draws on his broad experience base, attention to detail and strategic mindset to lead teams in the development of appropriate solutions.
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Alison Flynn , Senior Associate Director, Water and Environment
Alison has 12 years of experience in the industry and is a Chartered Water and Environmental Manager, Chartered Environmentalist and Chartered Scientist. She has been a technical project manager on numerous multi-disciplinary projects, involving integrated catchment management and nature-based solutions. She has a strong technical background in fluvial geomorphology and sustainable river management in the water sector, having pioneered new approaches to asset resilience in a utilities company.
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Penny Borton, Senior Associate Director of Sustainability (Natural Capital)
Penelope Borton is an award-winning natural capital practitioner who currently leads the natural capital discipline for Jacobs. Penny acts as Chair for IEMA’s Biodiversity and Natural Capital Steering Group, supporting the development and dissemination of innovative approaches across the field. Penny’s key areas of focus include nature recovery and the quantification of natural capital benefits to support business case development.
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Dr. Chris Newton, Principal Surface Water Technologist
Chris is a chartered stormwater and sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) specialist with over 11 years’ experience working with stormwater and water management companies and academia. He has experience delivering technical and commercial projects and disseminating technical information to consultants, contractors and other professionals. Chris completed his doctorate through the STREAM IDC Program in 2016 with Hydro International, focusing on flood resilient sewer systems.
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Valerie Robertson, Senior Associate Director of Economics
Valerie is a Sector Lead for Environmental Economics and she has 16 years of experience. She currently acts as technical lead on various economic, natural capital and social value assessments as well as leading on sales, business development and training in this area. Valerie specializes in environmental valuation and economic appraisal. She has been a lead author/contributor on several natural capital and ecosystem services studies, including developing and applying approaches for valuing the environmental and social costs across a breadth of sectors and projects. With an academic background in environmental science, climatology and sustainability, Valerie has also contributed to a number of strategic initiatives and client projects on nature recovery and the climate emergency, including ESG reporting requirements.
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NewsCo-creating Sustainable Water Catchments
In a recent webinar series, we examined how a collaborative OneWater approach is being used to address catchment-scale water management challenges, such as flooding and droughts, in the U.K.
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NewsInnovation Partnership Wins Place on Ofwat’s Water Breakthrough Challenge
Jacobs and Mott MacDonald support lead partners United Utilities and The Rivers Trust to start a national five-year program of work aimed at mainstreaming water catchment and nature-based solutions for delivery at scale across the U.K. Read more about this large-scale, potentially game-changing innovation project.
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ReportHow Can We Use Nature and Data to Help Solve our Environmental, Climate and Affordability Crises?
Solving our environmental, climate and affordability trilemma requires bringing together two factors that could be considered opposing ends of the spectrum: sustainable nature-based approaches and cutting-edge data- and technology-enabled solutions. This paper defines the trilemma and the impacts on the CSOs challenge, then discusses the art of the possible for these novel approaches and the potential regulatory, societal and technological shifts required to empower these solutions.
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NewsCatchments, Creativity and Communities: A Q&A with Lee Pitcher on Tackling Climate Change in the Water Sector
Jacobs Director of Water and Environment for Europe, Lee Pitcher, is one of the leaders in the water sector revolution. Here are the lessons from his 22-year-long, award-winning career that he’s using to accelerate the growth of Integrated Catchment Management, part of Jacobs’ OneWater approach and a proven framework for sustainable, socially-led success. Get to know Lee and his work in this Q&A.