>> So the threads first in the UK, are this
the same that we see in other parts of the world.
>> I think in terms of extreme events, not the same presentation, but I think what
you need to remember is that in the
U.K., 6% of of consumption is through household consumption.
In the rest of the world, we look to
agriculture where 7-8% of the water consumption is through agriculture.
So in actual fact, the impacts are going to
be very different in different parts of the world.
>> And that's because of the different ways that people are using water there?
>> Exactly.
And also there are many opportunitive recycling in terms of household water use.
In, agricultural use, quite often, the water is exported
as virtual water, so it leaves the immediate environment.
>> Clyde, what I read about your research,
one of the main challenges that will face U.K.
policy makers in dealing with climate change in
the water sector, will be the issue of uncertainty.
Is that true?
>> It is true there is a reasonable consensus
around predictions of climate change in the U.K. There
is still problems with temporal uncertainty going to the
future, making predictions about what will happen in the future.
And also around spatial, i.e.
the actual scale of those predictions.
But the more fundamental problem is that we have a focus on temperature.
For water resources, we really need to focus on precipitation and evaporation.
And it's evaporation, which is probably the
most challenging of these where it's actually found,
we found it quite difficult in fact to predict what will happen in the future.
>> So there is uncertainty around the evaporation part of the predictions.
>> Yes, and it's absolutely critical because the way in which heat
stress can be mitigated is related
to green structures, and therefore evaporation.
But also if you start dealing with the effects
on vegetation and crops, again, evaporation is the key
factor that can be mitigated by irrigation, but without
irrigation, one can expect to be have high heat stress.
>> So what policy approaches do we have in the U.K. at the
moment, and are they the same as in other parts of the world?
>> Well across the world, there are a number
of policies which are emerging which are fairly common.
Clearly infrastructure improvement plays a large role.
A greater emphasis upon integrated water
resource management pollution control, water conservation
and recycling and sometimes even moving
from a non traditional resources to desalination.
And we can all of these manifest in different ways in the U.K..
The challenge in the U.K. is that in fact since privatization
in 1989, we have a, a variety of different institutions that
have a role to play within climate change responses and certainly
the 2 terms of adaptation and mitigation are to the fore.
And it may be interesting to discuss further what
the roles of adaptation are within the U.K. context.
>> Mm-hm.
Because there is work.
I mean, there's various policy from the government body such as
the Department for the Environment and so on and on litigation.
But adaptation is a, is a more diffuse issue.
But, isn't it.
It does involve more stakeholders in making it work.
>> Well the thing is you're right, I think the issue
about stakeholder engagement is actually at the forefront of that discussion.
Quite often, we are looking for tools which can help us change behavior.
And they can range from economic tools through
to tools through social learning and other mechanisms.
But this move if you like
from environmental sustainability and environmental engineering
through to stake of engagement really embraces the whole realm of adaptation.
>> Mm-hm.
Is there anyway, is the U.K. doing it well or is anywhere
else in the world doing stake holder engagement well around this issue?
>> [LAUGH] That's not, interesting.
I've come across a number of different examples.
>> Okay.
>> Most recently, South Africa has been very challenged in
terms of having stakeholder engagement, it's enshrined in their water policies.
But in practice, what they are sort of finding is the asymmetries
of power make it very difficult for all stakeholders to be treated equally.
But I have seen examples from New Zealand, from Bangladesh where in
fact state held engagement seems to be very much to the fore.
One of the ancient developments in this is, removes us from what
might be called the, the public education model, where the science, the experts
pass down the ideas and, and
the strategies, through towards a co-production model,
where stake holders will engage to
the forefront of the developing the strategies.
And those are quite 2 extremes, which the UK's trying
to develop, but I think it's still being quite a challenge.
>> Mm-hm.
So Clive, the issues you've just mentioned there, a lot of those are kind
of supply side tools, as it were, what about the demand side of things?
>> Well, that's right.
Additionally, we have emphasized tackling problems
of water shortage problems through enhancing supply.
I think increased in the last couple of decades, there are
a variety of tools around the area of demand management and
these include both economic tools, also human behavioral tools, but also
technology as well can actually help in reducing consumption and reducing demand.
In the U.K., one of the obstacles is that
by and large, we don't have a meter population.
We don't have water meters.
So we actually are charged on water use by
the size and value of our property which is
very good for revenue collection, but actually makes it
much more difficult to use pricing to control the demand.
>> Yeah.
I'll say a little bit of that in the next week videos when I took about the
history of the U.K. and it's developing past,
and the link to property tax and so on.
But it is quite challenging when you're not linking to,
you know, water usage or number of people in the household.
I mean, how, how much control do you have over demand management with,
in the absence of, of the metering and the link to volumetric knowledge really?
>> There is a debate about the use of
economic tools to control demand and there are questions
about the elasticity of demand for water, which I'm
sure we'll cover in other parts in this course.
Therefore, there has to be other approaches
as well than simply using pricing tools.
In addition, the problem in the U.K. is because of the lack of metering.
