The UK Drought & Water Scarcity Programme was a five-year (2014-2019) interdisciplinary NERC programme in collaboration with Research Councils ESRC, EPSRC, BBSRC and AHRC. Building on the activities of the original projects – DRY, IMPETUS, MaRIUS and Historic Droughts – ENDOWS (2017-2019) was funded by the Research Councils as a follow-on project bringing together the successful stakeholder engagement elements of the four original projects to further develop and promote understanding of the key messages from the programme. It continues to inform adaptation and management decisions before, during, and after drought events, using the new data and findings from the DWS programme.
Bringing it all together – About Drought
ENDOWS has brought these activities together under the banner ‘About Drought’, an accessible programme of informed engagement with regulators, industry, business, policy-makers, communities and sector organisations.
Knowledge Exchange has been a key function of About Drought, facilitating effective networking between the research and stakeholder communities; encouraging the building of reliable contacts and stimulating new working relationships, and accelerating the speed at which the outputs of the DWS programme have been and are being implemented to support evidence-based decisions in drought planning and management.
User stories and case studies
So far, the project has enabled interaction on and transfer of scientific knowledge and outputs in the form of resources, information, and/or tools to water companies, the environmental regulators, allotment groups, farmers associations, and so on. Interviews and user case-studies can be found in the About Drought Handbook.
By Jamie Hannaford, Principal Investigator, ENDOWS
Posted: October 2019