On Friday 21st June, The Future Towns Innovation Hub, in collaboration with The Sustainability and Resilience Institute and the University’s Civic Team, hosted it’s first Clean Water South Event, primarily looking at improving water quality of our rivers for people and nature, within the region.
We had about 40 delegates attend, ranging from the University researchers, water companies, such as Southern Water, water charities, and many more. It was so important to get the different sectors in the room to work together to identify the problems and opportunities, and this developed strong links, facilitating effective communication, and generating information for the water quality of our rivers. We had some quick fire presentations from 9 different internal and external colleagues;
- David George, Whitchurch Conservation Group The role of Chalk Aquifer in the Transport and Degradation of contaminants in the Upper Test Catchment.
- Adrian Nightingale, University of Southampton Nutrient Monitoring with non-drifting, high frequency droplet-based sensors.
- Alex Deacon, Wessex Rivers Trust Farmers Testing the Water.
- Gavin Millar, Friends of the Itchen Estuary Itchen Estuary Sewage Pollution and Citizen Science.
- Simon Kennedy, Fareham Borough Council Planning for Water.
- Chris Hill, University of Southampton, Valuing how Nutrient Mitigation Schemes and Land Management Scenarios can deliver Wider Ecosystem Services.
- Yannis Ieropoulos, University of Southampton Sustainable Energy Technologies for Water Quality Monitoring.
- Chani Courtney, Surfers Against Sewage Sewage Pollution: Problems and Solutions.
- Nic Bury, University of Southampton Future Monitoring for Chemicals of Concern.
The event finished up with a Panel session, whereby the conversation was targeted around many of these issues, and how Water is a Civic problem, or opportunity, as Water Quality effects every citizen in our region, and it needs to be high up on agendas. This was the first of many workshops as part of this new network, and we are looking forward to the next one in the Autumn.
If you are interested in finding out more, please do get in touch by visiting our LinkedIn page Future Towns Innovation Hub | LinkedIn, or emailing us at futuretowns@soton.ac.uk