This scenario operates in the same kind of the world as the Fragmented Catchment, but local responses are entirely different.

Under this scenario the Parrett Catchment operates in a world of global inter-connectness, one premised on expanding open world markets and the generally free movement of intellectual, financial and physical capital. The role of the nation state as an agent of change has progressively diminished. It has been replaced with a litany of supra-national organizations attempting to regulate this increasingly globalised world to good and ill effect.

Environmental problems, such as climate change, continue to be met with co-ordinated programmes of action at the supranational level, but these efforts are less responsive to local circumstances. Indeed, while the focus of many of these organisations is on improving human quality of life, they tend to be cumbersome from the point of view of managing local systems. In an important sense, then, this is a world that involves a fairly reactive approach to natural resource management at the global scale, despite good intentions. Systems of global governance seem to be disconnected from the lives and livelihoods of ordinary people on the ground.

Unlike the fragmented catchment a lack of faith in global institutions combined with the ‘retreating’ state has lead to approaches that favor local experimentation in the management of natural resources. This is a process that has created a highly effective culture of resilience and adaptation, one based on devolved autonomy and participatory political structures.  Intelligent spatial planning has effectively created a catchment of mixed-use ‘bio-communities’, one where positive links between local energy and food production, homes and access to open space have been mutually reinforcing.

Development has been extensive but is generally disperse, low impact and includes extensive provision for affordable housing. The integration of local resources into the design of these communities is widely accepted practice. In the advent of unstable world markets for energy, communities effectively start to ‘power’ themselves through integrated, clean and soft energy systems: domestic wind turbines are as common place as television aerials! Food production and exchange is geared towards the ‘proximity principle’: that is, on short supply and distribution chains. Livestock and arable farmers thrive, as do those cultivating land for energy.

In the absence of heavily incentivised state support for environmental stewardship, land managers are encouraged to exploit low cost ways of adapting to climate change, such as the creation of new wetland habitats to attenuate flood waters. This is a catchment that meets the repercussions of global environmental change with ingenuity. The creation of “amphibious” homes, where buildings effectively float on the water when a storm surge occurs, is but one example of the adaptive spirit at the heart of this scenario.

The Adaptive Catchment – Overview of Key Trends