Defra together with the EA has recently announced that ADAS is to lead a major collaborative research programme in one of three sentinel Demonstration Test Catchments in England (Hampshire Avon) to monitor the potential of sustainable on-farm mitigation methods for improving water quality and ecology as part of the EU Water Framework Directive.
The principal aim of the Defra / Environment Agency Demonstration Test Catchments (DTC) project is to test the hypothesis that it is possible to reduce cost-effectively the impact of agricultural diffuse water pollution on ecological function while maintaining sustainable food production through the implementation of multiple on-farm mitigation measures.
The DTC project aims to achieve this by detecting shifts in baseline trends of the most ecologically-significant pollutants resulting from targeted on-farm measures at field to farm scales and assessing their effects on ecosystem function.
An important objective of the new research in the Avon DTC is to establish an integrative data infrastructure for wider collaborative use and interpretation by the national research community through the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Virtual Observatory (VO) initiative.
The Avon DTC consortium benefits from a multi-disciplinary team that represents a selection of the leading individual scientists and research groups (public and private) in the UK with national and international reputations in their respective areas.
The first component of the DTC project will run from December 1st 2009 to March 31st 2014 and will focus on the implementation and maintenance of high resolution multiple pollutant monitoring in designated target sub-catchments and the formulation of a catchment conceptual model. Additional components will comprise the implementation of measures, knowledge exchange and transfer, data structure and modelling / decision support.
For further information please contact the consortium lead Professor Adrian Collins on 01902 693404 or e-mail adrian.collins@adas.co.uk.