RELU DISCUSSION PAPER: RISING TO THE LAND-USE CHALLENGE: ISSUES FOR POLICY-MAKERS FEEDBACK FROM THE CATCHMENT SCIENCE CENTRE, THE UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD BOB HARRIS*, BEN SURRIDGE, ALISON HOLT & DAVID LERNER (*contact r.harris@sheffield.ac.uk) 1. RELU’s strategic policy questions addressed ‐ How do we achieve multiple objectives from land and water? ‐ How do we achieve more democratic and accountable decisions? ‐ How can our use of land and water help tackle climate change? 2. Background to our response This response is based on work and current thinking developed at the Catchment Science Centre (www.shef.ac.uk/csc ) at the University of Sheffield in the context of developing the science base for a more holistic approach to the management of land and water, and their associated ecosystem goods and services. In particular we are interested in an Integrated Catchment Management (ICM) approach for the UK, building on the opportunities presented by current and future implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). We recognise that the focus of the RELU programme is predominantly on understanding and managing the rural environment, and that a range of interesting and important work is emerging from the programme. However, we believe that solutions to the broad, strategic policy questions posed by the RELU discussion paper will require that rural land, and the management of rural land, are explicitly recognised as parts of a wider socio-environmental system. Delivering multiple ecosystem goods and services from land and water requires us to integrate understanding and management of rural land with that of other ‘types’ of land. Rural land is inextricably connected to other land use ‘zones’, including for example urban land. A myriad of examples could be presented to demonstrate such connections. Here we briefly present three to highlight the range spanning across the physical-chemical-social-economic spectrum: i) the emerging debate surrounding the use of rural land for storage of flood water raises significant questions about the economic viability and need for diversification of farm businesses. However, it is also of broader interest for the management of flood risk in downstream towns and cities, for example due to the potential of flood storage on rural land to attenuate the flood peaks experienced in urban areas. Such connections between rural and urban land with respect to flood risk are explicitly recognised in recent policy-relevant publications, including the Pitt Review of the 2007 summer floods and Defra/EA guidance on catchment flood management planning; ii) whether the costs for the removal of nutrients and other pollutants, such as pesticides, from potable water should be met by the water consumer through continued treatment of water at the receptor, or through more stringent controls on the sources of these pollutants, raises questions about the accuracy of source apportionment and the effectiveness of regulatory, voluntary and incentive schemes in both rural and urban environments; iii) the recreational use of rural environments, often linked to human well-being, provides direct links between rural and urban populations. For example, whilst the urban area of Sheffield