Virtual Stakeholder Engagement in Integrated Water Management: Navigating Online Meetings, Social Distancing and Catchment Partnerships During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract:

Integrated water management relies on engagement with all stakeholders who use, impact and influence water and land resources within a river catchment (watershed management). Traditionally this has been achieved through face-to-face partnerships, stakeholder or resident group meetings. However, the global pandemic radically changed the way such engagement occurred providing challenges but also research opportunities. Catchment partnerships quickly switched to virtual space, making use of new technologies. This may have some benefits, e.g. using discourse capture technology to reveal previously unheard voices; and some barriers, e.g. differing levels of accessibility to technology, availability through balancing work and care-responsibilities and the sudden demand for continual screen time, which require perseverance to maintain stakeholder interest. This presentation will highlight some of the opportunities and challenges of conducted stakeholder engagement during the pandemic and share insights and methods to maintain successful collaboration in research. It will discuss how engagement and collaboration may continue in an era of uncertainty and social distancing, where careful planning is needed to ensure engagement is efficient and necessary. Community interest is a vital resource to river catchment partnership management, therefore developing methodologies to productively engage in new spaces and with new people is vital to the future success of integrated water management.