Our impact Back to 'Physical geography' Much of the world's population live in river basins that will experience significant environmental change this century, largely as a result of anthropogenic influences. Our work is meeting the challenge of finding solutions to cope with this change. Conservation of freshwater habitat We have been making critical evaluations of current conservation and adaptation principles, and governance frameworks in relation to predicted climate change impacts on alpine freshwater ecosystems. We have been looking at a methodological approach to help conservationists and resource managers prioritise their efforts, and better predict future habitat and biotic responses to set ecological baseline conditions. Science into policy Our science has demonstrable application via integration into key policy platforms. For example, work from the NERC KTP Hyporheic Zone Network led to an Environment Agency published handbook for environmental practitioners and policy generation/ advice in Defra on the management of surface-groundwater interactions. We also provided direct scientific guidance to the UK Technical Advisory Group for the EU Water Framework and have worked with UNESCO on global water resource issues. Groundwater resource management Our research has had a significant and verifiable social and economic impact on protecting and preserving water supplies serving 1.5M people in the Birmingham and Liverpool/Manchester regions. These water resources are valued in terms of replacement at between £0.4 and £1.1 billion, and are annually worth about £140M. Our research findings have also been directly used by water companies in their utilisation of these aquifers, as is evident in the recent development of major public supply-well schemes under Severn Trent Water’s Birmingham Resilience Strategy.