Combined impacts of future land-use and climate stressors on water resources and quality in groundwater and surface waterbodies of the upper Thames river basin, UK

It is widely acknowledged that waterbodies are becoming increasingly affected by a wide range of drivers of change arising from human activity. To illustrate how this can be quantified a linked modelling approach was applied in the Thames river basin in southern UK. Changes to river flows, water temperature, river and reservoir quality were predicted under three contrasting future “storylines”; one an extension of present day rates of economic development, the others representing more extreme and less sustainable visions. Modelling revealed that lower baseflow conditions will arise under all storylines. For the less extreme storyline river water quality is likely to deteriorate but reservoir quality will improve slightly. The two more extreme futures could not be supported by current management strategies to meet water demand. To satisfy these scenarios, transfer of river water from outside the Thames river basin would be necessary. Consequently, some improvement over present day water quality in the river may be seen, and for most indicators conditions would be better than in the less extreme storyline. However, because phosphorus concentrations will rise, the invoked changes in water demand management would not be of a form suitable to prevent a marked deterioration in reservoir water quality

A Model of IT Evaluation Management: Organizational Characteristics, IT Evaluation Methodologies, and B2BEC Benefits

Large organizations have invested substantial financial resources ininformation technology (IT) over the last few decades. However, many organizationshave discovered that they have not yet fully reaped the B2BEC benefits from their IT investments. A model of IT evaluation management is proposed in this paper to examine: (1) the relationship between the adoption of ITEM and B2BEC benefits; and (2) the impact of organizational characteristics (e.g. organizational IT maturity and IT evaluation resources (ITER) allocation) on the relationship between the adoption of ITEM and B2BEC benefits. The cross national survey results provide empirical evidence in support of our proposed model, and demonstrate that: (a) the level of organizational IT maturity has a direct and significant impact on the adoption of ITEM; (b) the adoption of ITEM has a positive relationship with the ITER allocation; and (c) the ITER allocation has a significant direct influence on B2BEC benefits