Scotland the Hydro Nation: annual report 2019

Looking Ahead – 2020 and Beyond

The Hydro Nation Forum met in June 2019 and endorsed the revised Hydro Nation strategy, which sets several areas of focus in the coming year.

Water Sector Vision

Scottish Water, following the Cabinet Secretary’s request, is to work with its partners to develop a new, long-term co-ordinated vision for the water sector that clearly identifies how it will transform the way it delivers its vital service to maintain the highest standards of customer service and improve technical standards.

Over the next 25 years, the strategic plan will enable Scottish Water to transform how services are delivered as Scottish Water plays its full part in responding to the climate crisis.

Scottish Water have a leading role in achieving Scotland’s ambitious Water Sector Vision, and have set three key outcomes that it will focus on delivering:

• Customers will receive consistently excellent water and waste water services.
• Customers will receive great value - now and in the future.
• Scottish Water will contribute to a healthy and prosperous Scotland.

Year of Coast and Waters

The Scottish Government, Event Scotland and Scottish Water are working together on plans for the 2020 Year of Coast and Waters, which aims to celebrate Scotland’s coasts, rivers and loch and to promote tourism. Scottish Water aims to build on the success of its customer engagement programmes over the last two summers by joining some of the 30 events that will be held as part of the themed year. As well as celebrating water the events will provide an opportunity to engage with people about the responsible disposal of waste to prevent choked sewers as well as beach and river pollution.

Aquatic Pollutants

Scottish Enterprise has successfully bid, as part of a large consortium, for EU funds to support research and innovation for emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. This will focus on the issue of pharmaceutical pollution, including antibiotic resistance within water ecosystems across Europe. The consortium will launch an innovation call during 2020 inviting companies and research institutes to form collaborative consortiums with other EU countries to bid into this fund. Research and innovation funding will be allocated for measuring, evaluating risk and action to reduce these emerging pollutants.

Scottish Development International (SDI)

SDI will continue to support companies to export water related goods and services and to attract inward investors to Scotland. Building on previous successful missions to Singapore and the Barcelona i-water conference, SDI will attend the major European water trade fair, Aquatech in Amsterdam, in November 2019. The aim of this mission is to attract international companies to access the EU funded Water Test Network and ultimately to establish water related inward investment in Scotland building on innovation strengths and physical test centres.

Hydro Nation (Research) International

In the coming year the team will launch the Youth Training Programme at Berambadi. The programme will be administered as an internship which will provide participants with marketable skills and facilitates the embedding knowledge of the Decentralised Wastewater Treatment system and processes within the community. Currently there are eight young people enrolled in the programme. The programme will be rolled out in three rounds to enable ongoing monitoring and amendment of the materials and in response to the changing requirements of the system as it stabilises. The team will also continue with the monitoring and optimisation of the treatment and reuse systems, and the data gathered about treatment efficacy will be continually fed into the economic valuation exercise. The interdisciplinary team will continue to work together to identify opportunities for achieving maximum social and environmental impact from the system. In doing so they will be refining the Decentralised Wastewater Treatment proof-of-concept with the aim of identifying new opportunities in India and Scotland to draw upon the knowledge and experience gained through this innovative project.

Hydro Nation Scholars

Scottish Canals are exploring opportunities to develop learning and research opportunities with academic institutions for future Hydro Nation Scholars to develop innovative thinking and utilise opportunities that our canal networks can provide in developing understanding in water resource, surface water management, climate change and to provide a basis for live development and exploitation.

SNH BCF Funding for Greening Pinkston Basin

To further complement the Glasgow Smart Canal project, Scottish Canals were recently successful in securing funding from the SNH Biodiversity Challenge Fund to install floating ecosystems within the Pinkston Basin, Glasgow. Following the installations, which will start in the autumn of 2019 and be completed over a period of 12 months, there will then be a 10 year monitoring programme to measure the benefits of habitat creation, which will provide an evidence base for delivery of aquatic green infrastructure within an urban environment. This project will also deliver significant aesthetic, amenity and potentially air quality improvements.