Benefits and challenges of integrated planning in the water and environmental management sector

Integrated planning in the water and environment sectors is becoming increasingly important as we face more environmental challenges and strive for sustainability

Binnies set our early career professionals the challenge of entering a competition to win attendance at Flood & Coast, the key annual conference for this sector. The competition asked for entries that demonstrated approaches or opinions that can positively influence the flood and coastal erosion risk management world.

We had some great entries demonstrating diversity in approaches, methodology and format including graphics, games and presentations. Three winners attended Flood & Coast providing them with further inspiration and the benefit of attending insightful sessions, networking with peers and enjoying the gala dinner. One of the winning entries was this thought provoking piece written by Camilla Curry where she discusses the many benefits of integrated planning and much more.

Camilla joined Binnies in September 2023 as part of our flood and coast team as an environmental planner. She said, “I am really grateful to be selected as one of the winners of this competition for young career professionals to win a place to attend Flood and Coast 2024. This competition provided me with an opportunity to write my first ever blog piece which I thoroughly enjoyed. Working at Binnies is filled with opportunities such as this, which have encouraged me to be curious when presented with tasks and allowed me to grow personally and professionally whilst being supported by inspiring and enthusiastic water and environmental professionals.”

Read Camilla’s winning piece

It’s 2009 and I’m at school, studying for my GCSEs. Mrs Frean, my geography teacher, introduces us to the concept of climate change and global warming and she outlines keys challenges on the horizon, such as rising global temperatures, prolonged rainfall, severe heatwaves, biodiversity loss, overpopulation and global pandemics. She highlights the need for an integrated approach if these problems are to be tackled. However, to my teenage brain, it seems like a distant and abstract problem: something that may or may not happen and certainly not something that we should worry about just yet.

Now, a decade and a half later, I have four years of flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) experience and am working in a sector addressing those very challenges Mrs Frean described all those years ago. These challenges, combined with population growth and expanding development, are putting increasing pressure on dwindling resources, which is resulting in biodiversity loss, polluted rivers, poor land management, increased flood risk, water insecurity and associated health risks during the hotter summer months.

The UK government has woken up to some of these threats, as we see a host of new legislation, policies and strategies being released. This includes the new legally binding targets set under the Climate Change Act (2008) to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050¹, the Environment Act 2021, which sets targets for air quality, water and waste reduction², and more recently, the introduction of biodiversity net gain (BNG). Developers are required to deliver 10% BNG for habitats and wildlife to ensure they are left in a measurably better state compared to pre-development³. Additionally, the 25 Year Environment Plan sets out the government’s long-term vision to improve the environment⁴ and the Environment Agency’s National FCERM Strategy published in 2020 sets a new direction for risk management authorities (RMA), importantly, recognising that communities and infrastructure need to be resilient now, with a changing climate⁵. This new legislation and national planning have created opportunities for the water and environmental (WEM) sector to deliver sustainable outcomes using collaborative catchment-based approaches for people and the environment. However, this requires an integrated management approach, including partnership working, across both public and private sectors along with engaging with communities, which can be challenging. It is recognised that partnership working takes time and needs fair representation from all sectors and local communities. Long-term funding is needed to maintain these relationships⁶ and multi-criteria decision-making tools and guidance are needed to ensure a range of objectives are delivered⁷. This can be challenging during a time when we are faced with economic constraints, with the 2024 Spring Budget recently announcing a freeze on public sector spending⁸.

However, there are successful examples of integrated planning and partnership working already happening in England. Examples include the EU-Interreg funded Environment Agency Lower Otter Restoration Project (LORP)⁹ and Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP) projects such as Southend-on-Sea City Council’s Catchment to Coast project¹⁰. These examples show how integrated and strategic planning can deliver multiple benefits across the social, environmental and economic sectors. They take integrated water management approaches to create new habitat resilient to climate change, manage flood risks and increase the sustainability of communities and infrastructure in the face of sea level rise and increased rainfall.

It is worth noting that many integrated water management projects rely on pilot funding. This short-term funding can pose challenges to mainstreaming projects and influencing long-term policy. It can be challenging for pilot projects to be ambitious from the outset, with hesitant stakeholders sometimes unwilling to sign up to long-term changes¹¹.

In addition, guidance to support the delivery of new legislation, plans and policies is not always provided by government, which can leave WEM practitioners feeling under-resourced and lead to inconsistent outcomes. For example, Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 is due to be introduced shortly and introduces new duties for local authorities to become sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) approval bodies (SAB)¹². England is still awaiting mandatory SuDS standards to be published, meaning the approach to SuDS can vary across projects, with factors such as water quality not always being taken into consideration¹³. This can result in schemes successfully retaining and reducing quantities of surface water runoff; however, without the clear guidance outlining the need to consider the management of water quality, it is becoming apparent that the quality of water within some SuDS, especially those taking runoff from highways, can produce toxic habitats for people and wildlife¹⁴.

Overall, I think Mrs Frean would be excited to see how we continue to develop an integrated approach to tackle today’s critical issues and deliver sustainable outcomes in the WEM sector, although questions relating to funding constraints and clear guidance on how to deliver new targets and legislation remain