River corridors in the Urban Environment - Developing a Vision for the Future

Book your place now!

Cue the fanfare, the time has arrived for the URSULA team to proudly announce the exciting programme for this year's conference; 'River corridors in the Urban Environment - Developing a Vision for the Future'!  

The aim of the conference is to reflect on the important changes that have occurred in relation to the way we view water in the urban environment and in particular urban river corridors.  We will look at the range of future measures that will be required to meet existing and future requirements posed by development, regeneration, climate change and well-being agendas to further enhance the urban water environment.  The conference is the place to be for those interested in urban planning, development and regeneration,  professionals working with issues in the urban environment such as flooding and the use of SuDs, ecologists interested in urban river ecosystems, and those looking to plan water into urban areas. With high profile speakers from the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the Environment Agency, and the University of Sheffield, and sessions to discuss the information and ideas presented, the conference promises to be both a fascinating and productive forum on the issues facing urban river corridors.

And for those wanting more, the conference will be followed by an evening meal where you can socialise with the conference attendees, and the day after with site visits led by local experts in the Sheffield area, to locations being studied in the URSULA project.  To find out more and to register for the conference, click here to download the initial conference programme and registration form.

For photos from the URSULA project click here. To read about the latest URSULA research click here to see the hot off the press 2nd URSULA newsletter, and don't forget to check out more URSULA news here.

Beijing, North China Plain and Hei Basin, China

 10-20th July 2010

This advanced summer school will consist of of presentations, workshops and field visits, facilitated by senior researchers from the UK and China. The two-week event will deepen delegates´ understanding of the science and policy issues surrounding integrated river basin management, and create an international network of researchers. The objectives are to:

• Investigate theories and principles of integrated river basin management.
• Explore critical policy issues and the underlying science.
• Investigate the available and developing tools.
• Exchange research and practical experiences between China, the UK and elsewhere.
• Prepare joint position papers and commentaries for publication.
• Develop long term relationships for further research.

To find out more and download the application form click here to go to the Catchment Science Centre website (on right side of page).

Get your abstract in now! URSULA researcher Vikas Kumar is keen to invite you to submit an abstract for the 'Modelling the coupled social-environmental and physical systems of urban water' session he is running at the International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software, Ottawa, July, 2010. The aim of his session will be to present recent theoretical and applied work in the area of integrated modelling to support urban water management (UWM). This session will seek to stimulate analysis and discussion around a number of important issues, including: interfacing social and engineering models, comparing different techniques, what are the issues for effective implementation, and acceptance – the challenges of the transition from prototype model to real life application. The deadline is 27th of November 2009. For more details of the session click here, or conference click here.

Want to find out more about the wildlife in the ponds, streams and rivers in South Yorkshire? Then the Wildlife in our waterways event at Weston Park Museum is for you! With events for children and adults over the course of the day, there is something to keep everyone entertained.

From 10am til 4pm, a set of family orientated activities and exhibitions will be run, including  two run by members of the URSULA Project:

• Think you know your waterway animals and plants? Good at spotting wildlife? Well put your skills to the test and try to get the highest score you can with the Wildlife at Wicker Riverside game. In this activity for young and old, you get to explore an URSULA visualisation of Wicker in Sheffield populated by wildlife typical of rivers.  The challenge is to spot as much of this wildlife as possible, and add up your score to see if the kids are better than the parents. 100 points for a kingfisher!! 

• In case you ever wondered what bugs are living in the rivers around Sheffield, this is your chance to find out at the Creepy crawlies of rivers stand, set up by the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. See the surprising variety of minibeasts that inhabit the world of flowing water up close and personal with a microscope, and give identification a go of these alien looking critters. Younger children can colour in pictures of creepy crawlies while older children can have a go at classifying the water quality of different river samples using the creatures they find in them.

And from 7pm to 8.30pm, for those wanting to venture more deeply into natural history, several talks will be held that will discuss the wildlife in the Don Catchment in more depth:  

• Wildlife of the Living Don – John Paul Ward
• Conserving Sheffield’s Crayfish - Suzannah Dangerfield
• Fish and fishing on the Don - John Blewitt

Please book in advance by e-mailing learning@museums-sheffield.org.uk or calling 0114 2782655.

To find out the location of Weston Park Museum click here.

We hope to see you there!

The 11th River Restoration Conference in 2010, will focus on demonstrating the range of skills needed to deliver restoration projects for social, economic and habitat benefit. The aspiration of the conference is to provide a forum where ideas can be discussed across disciplines and between those charged with implementing policy, designing schemes, carrying out on-the-ground work or assessing the results for ecological, physical, economic and social gain. Themes include:

Putting river restoration into planning policy – recently there has been a lot of discussion about the social, economic and landscape benefit of river restoration, yet projects that demonstrate these benefits remain limited.

Planning restoration for the Water Framework Directive (WFD) – River Basin Management Plans will be finalized by December 2009. It has been suggested that successful achievement of WFD will necessitate the integration of existing initiatives such as catchment sensitive farming (CSF), higher level stewardship (HLS), the control of invasive species, and the removal of weirs to encourage fish passage etc. Does this go far enough and how can river restoration help deliver targets?

Wider global perspectives – our conference audiences always look to learn from outside the UK, especially in terms of river restoration initiatives and how the WFD programmes of measures (PoMs) will be delivered in Europe.

Project appraisal for adaptive management and reducing uncertainty – learning from our past experiences is essential to help guide us in the quest for most appropriate use of river restoration techniques.

For more details click here

The Catchment Science Centre at the University of Sheffield has the pleasure in inviting you to the forthcoming conference "CONTRIBUTIONS OF RESEARCH TO CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT"
to be held on 2 December 2009 at The Showroom in central Sheffield.

Download the programme here.

Launched in 2006, CatSci is a multidisciplinary research programme in catchment science funded by the European Commission under the Marie Curie Early Stage Training Fellowship scheme. The project aims to deliver research to support Integrated Catchment Management as requested by current water management policies such as the Water Framework Directive. This conference is the culmination of the research carried out over the last three years as the project draws to a close. We hope you will join us at The Showroom, from 9.30 - 4.00. Download a registration form here and return to Jenny (J.A.Chambers@sheffield.ac.uk or 0114 222 5725).

On the 18th of November three x 20 minute talks...

River Soundscapes
Professor Jian Kang and Dr. Yuliya Smyrnova
Acoustics Group, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield

Putting Water back into Public Places, Sheffield’s Experience and Future Ambitions
Simon Ogden
Sheffield City Council

Daylighting Urban Rivers
Tom Wild and David Lerner
Catchment Science Centre, University of Sheffield

The event will be held at 18.30 Lecture theatre 4, Mappin Building, The University of Sheffield.
Refreshments served from 18.00 in room D119 (ground floor)

The time for waiting is over. The hotly anticipated URSULA conference is fast approaching, and the freshly released programme (get it below) promises a day summarising the fascinating research of the wide range of subjects studied in the interdisciplinary URSULA project. For those with an interest in sociology, we have topics as diverse as governance of river corridors and philosophy of science in the context of river research. In ecology, we have the results of work looking at aspects of the river restoration measures of deculverting and weir modification, as well as a report on what bird species can be found within Sheffield's river corridors. More technical presentations cover the use of GIS to identify stormwater disconnections, theory and practice of Bayesian Belief Networks and visualisation media. We also have a good helping of sustainable urban design topics, covering flood resilience, green roofs, urban microclimates and riverside access.

The URSULA conference will be held on the 16th of Oct in the ICOSS building. Start 9.00am.
For a detailed programme of the event click here. 

And just to prove good things come in pairs, only a few months after the URSULA conference on the 6th of Dec the CatSci conference "CONTRIBUTIONS OF RESEARCH TO CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT" will be held at the Showroom in Sheffield. For more details click here.

URSULA was well represented at the recent CIWEM annual conference held in April 2009. Tom Wild presented an overview of our work on urban river corridors, and Prof David Lerner provided a critique of the EAs draft River Basin Management Plans, stimulating a great deal of discussion and feedback!

Jacqueline Bernet, of the Catchment Science Centre, presented work undertaken jointly with Emma Westling and Tom Wild on the evidence for social, economic and environmental impacts of daylighting (or deculverting), as part of a a review of the CIWEM policy position statement on this particularly urban form of river restoration.

Copies of the presentations are available to download from the CIWEM conference website here

On the 26th of May as part of the Catchment Science Centre awareness month, URSULA hosted a public debate on restoring urban rivers. The event included presentations by Giancarlo Gusmaroli from the Italian Rivers Restoration Centre (CIRF) on “River Contracts”, and by the Five Weirs Walk Trust (Lisa Judson and Simon Ogden), as well as URSULA project manager Tom Wild.  The debate on 'what does river restoration mean in urban environments' was extremely lively and stimulating. A report of the debate is available here.

A call for paper and poster abstracts has gone out for the 10th River Restoration Conference 2009 to be held at Nottingham University on the 1st and 2nd of April 2009 and an optional site visit on the 3rd. The theme of the event is ‘River restoration benefits: past, present and future’  and suggested topics are:

Flood risk management working with natural processes (e.g. reconnecting floodplains and creating wetlands)

Climate change proofing – integrating benefits for habitats and local communities

River basin projects –river restoration as a focus for delivering large scale aspirations

Benefits and effectiveness of schemes for habitat enhancement – what works, why, when and where?

Indicators for appraisal and evaluation – why don’t we always get the answers we anticipated?

Urban regeneration – can river restoration benefit social cohesion?

Planners and urban design – how effective is policy in taking account of the social and economic benefits of river restoration?

10 years on – then and now: how far has river restoration come since 1999, what are the new developments and challenges?

Abstracts are to be submitted by the 7th of November to RCC@thercc.co.uk. For more information click here. 

Have we enough? Can we reconcile competing demands?

Increased and competing pressures on our use of land: - for wildlife, water supply and management, food production, biofuels and biomass, carbon stewardship, transport, housing and recreation – pose an escalating environmental challenge at every level. What is our long term vision for land use in the UK, and how can we achieve this?

The seven prominent speakers in this series will provide new insights and suggest possible solutions for the management of this key resource.

The lectures will be held in Birkbeck, University of London.

For more information click here

This workshop to be held on the 14th of November at Lancaster University is the fourth in a series aimed at examining emergent socio-environmental landscapes in the Mediterranean region. By focusing on key issues such as tourism, migration, regionalisation, water, transport, the series aims at gaining a better understanding of the challenges facing the region in the 21st century. A guiding principle of the seminar series is that understanding future challenges and emergent socio-environmental landscapes requires a sensibility towards the longue durée of significant social, cultural, economic and technological processes.

For more information about the event including speakers, questions to be discussed and registration click here.

URSULA’s annual conference held on the 17^th of October proved to be both a stimulating and productive event, generating discussion and yielding exciting new ideas to help push the project forward.

The research team presented research carried out by URSULA to date, and introduced our case study work relating to the River Don District redevelopment site, at Weedon Street in the Lower Don Valley in Sheffield. Each presentation was followed by a chance to ask questions and discuss the issues raised, enabling attendees to get further information and contribute their own perspectives.

Participants then split into 4 groups, to get creative. Using large maps of Weedon St, the groups put pen to paper to produce alternative scenarios for development, drawing on their aspirations and expert knowledge, and generating invaluable material for the research team.

After lunch came the last set of presentations where the topic of integration and assessment of interventions was discussed. The conference was wrapped up with reflections on the project and a discussion of where next. A report on the event’s proceedings will be available online soon.

For more information on URSULA please contact Tom Wild at (t.wild@sheffield.ac.uk; 0114 222 6283).     

On 28th April URSULA hosted its first stakeholder workshop. With sixty or so participants from organisations with an interest in the long term regeneration of Sheffield’s urban river corridors and positive feedback from those who attended the event was a resounding success. Many interesting ideas and insights regarding aspirations and interventions for Sheffield’s urban river corridor were raised and discussed throughout the day. These outputs will make an important contribution to the direction of the URSULA project. 

More information on URSULA and how it intends to involve stakeholders in its activities can be obtained from URSULA team members Peter Moug (P.Moug@sheffield.ac.uk; 0114 222 6285) or Tom Wild (t.wild@sheffield.ac.uk; 0114 222 6283).

URSULA partners can find the research themes presentation and interrim results for interventions selected in the Member's zone file explorer.