A method‐centric ‘User Manual’ for the mitigation of diffuse water pollution from agriculture

Abstract

Summary 22We describe the development of a manual of methods for mitigating diffuse water pollution 23 from agriculture and its important influence on policy and practice in England and Wales. The 24 objective of the 'User Manual' was to provide policy makers and those implementing policies 25 with information about the cost, effectiveness and applicability of potential methods in a form 26 that would be readily understood by non-specialists. The 'User Manual' was based on earlier 27 reports synthesising available research data and, where data were unavailable, used expert 28 elicitation. The outcome generated 44 potential methods (under the broad categories of land 29 use, soil management, livestock management, fertiliser management, manure management 30 and farm infrastructure) and described the simultaneous impact of applying each method on 31 losses of nitrate, phosphorus and faecal indicator organisms relative to baseline losses. 32Estimates of cost and effectiveness were presented at the whole-farm level for seven model 33 farm types. Methods differed widely in their cost-effectiveness and applicability to the 34 different model farms. Advantages and limitations of the approach are discussed and 35 subsequent developments of the original 'User Manual' are described, together with the 36 opinions of catchment officers who have used the 'User Manual' to implement mitigation 37 methods on farms. 38

An exploration of individual, social and material factors influencing water pollution mitigation behaviours within the farming community

“…Phase 1 Baseline Survey -This exercise involved either telephone or face-to-face exploratory interviews with 73 farmers across our three study catchments to assess their current and planned uptake of 30 DWPA mitigation measures as defined by Defra's Inventory of Mitigation Methods User Guide (Newell- Price et al, 2011;Cuttle et al, 2016). This initial exercise provided an opportunity to assess relative uptake rates for different measures but the primary purpose was to recruit farmers to take part in a more detailed follow-up attitudinal study.…”

The Potential of P Loss from Livestock Farms to Watercourses in Wensleydale; A Risk Mapping Approach

“…These data show the lack of effective techniques for application of manure what results in an increase of the risk of P loss according to the P Index assessment. The reason for this is associated with the exposure of manure to precipitation events and subsequent nutrients loss in runoff [50,51].…”

“…Despite this limitation, figures for Farm 5 obtained from the risk maps ( Figure 5) showed lower levels of risk associated with the use of shallowinjection method in comparison with splash plate methods. This is linked to larger amounts of P absorbed by the upper soil layers due to the direct contact of slurry with the soil [50,69]. Thus, this method contributes to decreasing the SRP loss to freshwaters [69].…”

Mitigation of diffuse water pollution from agriculture in England and China, and the scope for policy transfer

“…For farm typologies in England there is a body of evidence for the effectiveness of DWPA mitigation measures at a field scale (Newell Price et al, 2011 16 ;Cuttle, et al, 2016). Although this could be further improved (Randall, et al, 2015;Holden, et al, 2016), it is informing implementation of the national mitigation framework.…”