Valuing your soils: benefits of precision agriculture workshop, 23rd February
The third ‘Valuing Your Soils’ awareness raising workshop for farmers is taking place at West Mains of Kinblethmont (near Arbroath) on 23rd Feb. There will be a drone flight and other SoilEssentials Ltd technology demonstrations. For more details on the event please see the SRUC project page.
Odour management and monitoring in Scottish wastewater treatment plants
Wastewater treatment works in Scotland have evolved substantially in the past 20 years. During the 1990s, major investments were made to comply with the Urban Wastewater Treatment directive. These investments were designed to protect the environment from the adverse effects of urban waste water discharges, and were not specifically focused on odour control. Odours continued to present issues at some sites, and in 2005, a statutory Code of Practice (CoP) for odour control at sewage works in Scotland was published by the Scottish Executive.
Effect of Soil Structure and Field Drainage on Water Quality and Flood Risk
This report provides a broad assessment of the state of soil structure and drainage on commercial farms in four selected catchments during autumn/winter 2015/2016. We describe the policy implications of the findings. Similar UK studies are used to discuss our results. This project was commissioned by SEPA and addresses its Land Protection objective “make links between soil management and water protection measures to ensure maximum benefit for both soil/land and water quality” (SEPA, 2015). It also begins to address a need identified in the Supporting Material of the Scottish Soil Framework Directive (Scottish Government, 2008) to assess soil compaction in the field to assess its occurrence in Scotland and its effect on soil functions, and similar desires in the EU Soil Framework Directive (Loj, 2009).
We found severe soil structural degradation in 18% of topsoils and 9% of subsoils for 120 fields in four catchments across Scotland.
Assessing the combined effectiveness of Scotland's rural diffuse pollution measures in reducing FIO from a livestock catchment
SEPA are proposing to adopt monitoring to show effectiveness of rural diffuse pollution measures in reducing FIO from a livestock catchment. This will draw from the recommendations in the CREW report “Monitoring guidance to assess the effectiveness of the Rural Diffuse Pollution Plan”. Before SEPA embark on an extensive monitoring programme to confirm the current modelling predictions, they would like to ensure that similar work has not already been carried out that could provide the information needed to evaluate and verify the models.
Valuing Your Soils: Improving Farm Efficiency workshop - 14th February, Brechin
This workshop is supported by CREW at the request of SEPA. The programme includes talks from Neil MacLeod from Southesk Farms and experts from SRUC and SEPA on improving farm efficiency, the challenges associated with cultivating heavier ground and practical guidance, a farm tour with open soil pits and practical demonstrations of soil visual evaluation. Attendees will also receive a copy of the recently released ‘Valuing Your Soils’ brochure.
To book a place please email Joanna Cloy or telephone 0131 535 4155.
Impact Evaluator vacancy at University of Leeds: Project iCASP - Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme
More information on this post is available here.
Innovative solutions for sustainable drinking water treatment at small to medium scales
Within the EU Horizon 20/20 program and The Hydro Nation Agenda water is seen as a significant enabling factor in the transition towards a resource efficiency and regenerative circular economy. While major urban managed water systems have seen
much improvement in performance, small to medium supplies still require optimisation. The research undertaken addressed the need to optimise the overall sustainability of small to medium sized water treatment processes.
This project surveys the drinking water treatment technology landscape (national and international) and develops a rational for assessing the technology across a range of operational scenarios.
Rural Sustainable Drainage Systems: A practical design and build guide for Scotland's farmers and landowners
Soil cultivation, manure / fertiliser applications and chemical spraying can all contribute to diffuse pollution from agricultural land. Rainfall runoff from farm roads, tracks, yards and dusty roofs are also potential sources of diffuse pollution. Whilst many changes in farming practice have dealt with these sources of pollution there still remains instances where small amounts escape from a farmyard into a nearby ditch or where sediment laden overland field flows make their way into a ditch or burn, river or natural wetland and finally the sea. This not only has cost implications for a farmer but these incidents across a catchment have a huge impact on our water environment. Rural Sustainable Drainage Systems (Rural SuDS) will reduce agricultural diffuse pollution impacts as they are physical barriers that treat rainfall runoff. They are low cost, aboveground drainage structures that capture soil particles, organic matter, nutrients and pesticides before they enter our water environment. Rural SuDS for steadings prevent blockages in drains and ditches. They contribute to good environmental practice and farm assurance schemes. In fields they can be used for returning fertile soil back to farmland and will help your business become more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Trapping soils, organic matter and nutrients means that valuable assets can be reclaimed – recent studies indicate savings of £88 per hectare per year! This Design and Build guide can be used by farmers and land managers to reduce diffuse pollution.
Governance and management of small rural water supplies: A comparative study
Small scale and rural water supplies present well-recognised problems to policymakers, regulators, service providers, communities and water users, all over the world. Small supplies across the European Union and internationally have been associated with inconsistent, or lower than required, frequency of monitoring and reporting of their status; non-compliances with microbiological and chemical quality standards; and unclear legal responsibilities for both operators and regulators in the case of a disease outbreak or non-compliances (Sinisi & Aertgeerts 2011; Rickert & Schmoll 2011; Eureau 2011; WHO 2012; European Commission 2014a; 2014b). This study was designed to make a wider comparative analysis of the governance, regulation and management of small rural water supplies across Member States of the European Union and other jurisdictions, and then make an in-depth analysis of selected case studies, supplemented by interviews and a stakeholder workshop.
This research clearly demonstrated that there are similar problems with small supplies all over the world; and that governance frameworks are relevant regardless of the form of ownership or type of management. It also showed that there are still many issues around definitions and terminology which can confuse the debate, as well as difficulties with consistency of data. Risk assessment, for example through Water Safety Plans, is a focus for service delivery at every scale, but for small and very small supplies, it is especially important to provide clear, userfriendly information and support, which is easily accessible to users. It is also important that obligations for suppliers and users are clear and understandable.
The effect of natural flood management in-stream wood placements on fish movement in Scotland
This report provides a review and analysis of information on the passage by fish at wooden obstacles (woody placements), used for flood management, in Scotland. The report covers a series of placement types ranging from those permanently in the wetted stream channel, to those placed on side-bars which are wetted for a low proportion of the year. With an absence of ground tested data, theoretical information from river-barrier assessment tools combined with the output from an expert panel, provide guidelines for good practice for the use of flood management woody placements in small streams, which minimise the impact on fish passage.
Pages
