Water Friendly Farming is a long-term research demonstration project. With our partners, we're testing the effectiveness of landscape-wide agri-environment measures for reducing the impact of rural land use on freshwaters and the services they provide.
Do agri-environment schemes really work for water?
We urgently need to get evidence of what works and what doesn’t so agri-environment funding is not, literally, poured down the drain. Water Friendly Farming aims to do just that.
The only demonstration project of its kind, Water Friendly Farming is delivering evidence on the benefits of agri-environment schemes for biodiversity, flood prevention and water pollution control. It’s helping to answer important questions:
- Can we protect and increase freshwater biodiversity without impinging on farm profitability?
- Can we reduce diffuse water pollution?
- Can we hold back water to help reduce downstream flooding?
The objective is to find out, for the first time, how well landscape-wide mitigation measures work and how successful they are in providing the benefits we need:
- Clean water to support fish, aquatic invertebrates, plants and other wildlife
- For our use and better flood storage to reduce the risks of flooding downstream.
- Field sampling points in the Stonton Brook Catchment - Water Friendly Farming.
Why we need Water Friendly Farming
Almost all lowland freshwater rivers, streams and ponds are degraded by diffuse pollution from farmland activities, run-off from roads, industry and urban inputs including sewage works. Three-quarters of rivers in England and Wales fail to meet even minimum legal standards set for a healthy river by the EU Water Framework Directive. Monitoring evidence from ponds shows they too have declined in quality in recent years.
In the UK we spend many millions of pounds annually on measures to mitigate this damage, including through agri-environment payments to farmers. Yet there is surprisingly little information to show whether these mitigations work, and if this is money well spent. We urgently need to get evidence of what works and what doesn’t so agri-environment funding is not, literally, poured down the drain. Water Friendly Farming aims to do just that.
- New clean water ponds created in the Water Friendly Farming project.
Sampling methods
1 Water Quality
Nitrate, total phosphorus, pH, conductivity have been collected over three from a stratified random sample of freshwater habitats across all landscapes to provide baseline data. In addition, ‘continuous’ monitoring has been undertaken at the furthermost downstream site in each catchment since the start of the project for nitrate, total phosphorus and suspended sediment with sampling intervals of 8-24 hours during storms.
2 Pesticides
Work on pesticides has included background level monitoring of the oil seed rape pesticides, carbetamide and propyzamide, and metaldehyde.
3 Aquatic biodiversity
From an annual stratified random sample of freshwater habitats (ponds, ditches, streams) across all catchments, surveying macrophytes, and macroinvertebrates. Most detailed analysis at present is for aquatic macrophytes with invertebrate sample processing in progress. With additional stream surveys are being undertaken to asses the impact of leaky dams. Fish abundance has been assessed using electro-fishing techniques to provide a baseline assessment of stream fish species present and their abundance.
4 Ecological Monitoring
Assessments of stream condition have been made for Water Framework Directive including macrophytes, diatoms, fish and aquatic invertebrates. Ponds are being assessed using the Predictive System for Multimetrics (PSYM) based on macrophytes and aquatic invertebrates.
5 Catchment hydrology
Long term, continuous monitoring of velocity, water depth and flow is undertaken using doppler shift system technology at sites positioned furthermost downstream locations in each catchment.
Mitigation measures
We’ve applied a range measures commonly used to mitigate the adverse impacts of agriculture on the freshwater environment across the two experimental catchments. The project’s results will provide a reality check determining the extent to which these measures, when fully applied, can be expected to deliver water quality improvements.
Combined effects of measures suggest that at the catchment scale we should be able to reduce phosphorus from diffuse sources by up to 50% at least in the short term (up to five years), reduce drain flow nitrogen by about 30%, and reduce sediments by as much as 75%. The project aims to intercept about 65% of the demonstration area field drains and ditch drainage before it enters a Water Framework Directive classified watercourse.
80% of the streams already had buffer strips whether from existing woodland or agri-environment schemes, and non-inversion tillage continues on 25% of the arable land. The objective of flow mitigation measures is to reduce the peak hydrograph in a 1:100 year flood to a level equivalent to a 1:75 year flood. There is evidence that such a reduction brings about significant economic benefits in terms of cost-benefit ratios for flood defence work, as it is cheaper to construct hold back water in the catchment than defend downstream areas (Farming Floodplains For The future, 2012).
We identified precise locations for water quality mitigation measures by a combination of the catchment modelling of risk areas and field-by-field walkovers. The location of flow interceptor ponds in this study was based on selecting the 25% of land that was most vulnerable to rapid water loss (i.e. the heaviest clays) with no more than one detention pond for every 8ha of land. Interception ponds have an average diameter of 22m and a depth of 2m, though area and depth varies according to the exact location. An average density of three ponds per km2 is required to achieve this.
We’ve created clean water ponds, which aim to maintain and enhance catchment biodiversity by creating habitats for uncommon macrophytes and aquatic invertebrates.
Baseline monitoring from the Water Friendly Farming project since 2011 has already provided important information about freshwaters at the landscape scale. Following the implementation of practical mitigation measures (2014 onwards) the main aim of the project now is monitoring the impact of changes we see, and using the results to help refine current freshwater management approaches in farming landscapes.
Different types of land use in Eye Brook catchment in 2014.
Practical measures implemented and in operation by March 2014. New wildlife ponds are designed to increase biodiversity in this catchment and have no direct input from adjacent agricultural land.
Different types of land use in Stonton Brook catchment in 2014.
Practical measures implemented and in operation by March 2014. New wildlife ponds are designed to increase biodiversity in this catchment and have no direct input from adjacent agricultural land.