Demonstration Test Catchments

What is the programme about?

Demonstration Test Catchments will find out if new farming practices, which aim to reduce diffuse pollution from agriculture, can also deliver sustainable food production and environmental benefits across whole river catchments. The programme is investigating the impacts of pollution both on ecosystems and on sustainable production and the programme aims to provide information to better predict and control diffuse pollution from agriculture.

Bob Harris, co-ordinator for the programme for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, says,

'this is the first time the problem of pollutant run-off and leaching from agricultural land has been investigated in an integrated way at the whole-catchment scale to such an extent.'

(See story on LWEC website)

What will the programme do?

Three locations were selected to be the demonstration test catchments:

• The Eden in Cumbria - http://www.edendtc.org.uk
• The Wensum in Norfolk - http://www.wensumalliance.org.uk
• and the Avon in Hampshire - http://www.avondtc.org.uk

These catchments were selected in order to build on existing infrastructure, datasets, knowledge and farming contacts developed through previous and ongoing initiatives, which have not previously been well linked.

These catchments are presently undergoing enhanced monitoring through the England Catchment Sensitive Farming Delivery Initiative.

Collaboration within and between research groups, and links to key stakeholders, will be fostered and promoted.

Research and mitigation actions in other catchments will also be drawn in and supported where relevant, to enhance the developing evidence base.

Data collection

In each Demonstration Test Catchment, a suite of experimental locations positioned on working farms have been established.

The project will develop novel practices in water quality monitoring including the establishment of a sensor web to control and interrogate instruments.

The sensor web is a number of automated samplers and sensors deployed throughout a catchment which can sample water quality remotely at regular times or on demand by a telemetry system.

Thus more intensive/frequent sampling can be instigated remotely on the advent of changes in the weather. The data are sent back through the telemetry (at some sites, mobile phone networks ar ebeing used and at others where the signal is not good, meteor showers are used to bounce the radio signals back).

The data from the more sophisticated bits of kit (remotely located Kiosks with a number of samplers and probes deployed) can be viewed in real time and data displayed as graphs.

What tools will be available?

• The programme will provide open source data and models which will be available to researchers: the data are being stored in database which will be accessible to all who wish to work on the catchment. The database will also store extra information such as videos and photos and information from non-scientists involved in the work.
• The findings will be available to improve the management of river catchments across England and Wales.
• The programme will deliver improved national scale models and decision support tools to predict the outcomes of proposed policy instruments.
• It will provide the physical and cyber infrastructure to cost-effectively host future research on catchment science and freshwater ecology.

Who will benefit from this activity?

Policy makers

• The research will provide an improved evidence-base for Defra and the Welsh Government to deliver policies that contribute to meeting Water Framework Directive objectives.
• A policy group consisting of Defra, the Environment Agency and Welsh Government officials has been established to set the research agenda for the project.
• The Environment Agency will be able to design and test the new approaches on a large spatial scale and will help facilitate their future development and will be used to monitor progress against Water Framework Directive targets nationally.
• The river basin/ catchment scale models and decision support tools that will be developed will inform future delivery approaches by the Environment Agency and Natural England. 

Water industry

• The programme is already developing close relationships with UK Water Industry Research (a body which facilitates collaborative research for UK water operators) and regional water companies are starting to take an interest, such as Anglian Water, who are interested in pesticide reduction in the Wensum.
• The evidence provided by the project will help inform the water industry and OFWAT on the likely effectiveness of catchment scale schemes to protect drinking water sources.

Farming industry

• Farmers will be made aware of methods to mitigate diffuse water pollution whilst maintaining productivity.
• The testing of measures will include a socio-economic analysis of the cost effectiveness of measures and likely impact on farm business.
• The data generated by the project will be accessible to farmers and will help the sector improve their net environmental performance.

PROGRAMME FACTS AND FIGURES

Start and end dates: 01/12/2009 to 30/11/2014