Case study:Farming For Water

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Location: 52° 24' 17.42" N, 1° 30' 23.77" W

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Project overview

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Status	In progress
Project web site	http://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/environment/catchment-management/farm-to-tap/
Themes	Land use management - agriculture, Water quality
Country	England
Main contact forename	Jodie
Main contact surname	Rettino
Main contact user ID	User:SevernTrent
Contact organisation	Severn Trent Water
Contact organisation web site	http://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/environment/catchment-management/farm-to-tap/
Partner organisations
Parent multi-site project
This is a parent project encompassing the following projects	No

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Project summary

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Farming for Water (F4W) is designed to help reduce diffuse water pollution from agricultural practices, however our work has multiple benefits for the wider environment.

Farming for Water is built up of the following schemes:

• STEPS (Severn Trent Environmental Protection Scheme) • Farm to Tap • Pesticide Management - training, amnesty and machine calibration clinics • Specialised advice visits • Great Farm Challenge

The programme commenced in 2015 and forms part of a 25 year programme of work. We have a team of 7 internal Agricultural Advisors and 12 partnership Agricultural Advisors delivering F4W, across 27 catchments. The Agricultural Advisors engage with farmers through one to one visits, workshops, demonstrations, training, and specialised visits.

Our main schemes are STEPS and Farm to Tap. STEPS offers grants to farmers to undertake works which will help reduce diffuse pollution. There are a wide variety of grants and options available to choose from; which are designed to deliver reduced run off of pesticides, nutrients, and sediment to water courses. Many of the grant options require specialist visit and we are the first water company to partner with NE’s Farm Advice Framework contract. This allows us to offer tailored farm advice visits through an established framework of approved technical expert contractors.

STEPS pays a fixed rate grant per item up to a maximum of £5000 per year. The grant price represents an estimated 50% of the total cost of a capital or land management items. The grants window is open annually from January to March. The Farm to Tap scheme is available to arable farmers within our priority catchments. The scheme has run in its current form from 2016. It is run annually from September to December each year during the high risk pesticide run-off period. Farm to Tap rewards farmers for producing cleaner run off from their land and improving water quality downstream of their farm. Initially trialled from 2012 – 2015, it is one of the first water company payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes with farmers providing us with an ecological service. This is in contrast to paying farmers to adopt specific mitigation methods on an individual farm basis. The approach acknowledges that co-ordinated action is needed across the catchment to see improvements in water quality, and that by stimulating outcomes rather than actions, land owners and farmers may take greater ownership of water quality issues.

Monitoring surveys and results

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To evaluate the success of Farming for Water (F4W) we monitor/record:

• Number of farms engaged • Farmer feedback • Independent audits – 10% of engagement audited each year by independent consultants • Number of STEPS items taken up and their resulting pollution load reduction • Soil monitoring for nitrogen at 22 sites • In-catchment spot water quality monitoring – 96 sample locations, 12 samples taken per year • Monthly water treatment works (WTWs) abstraction points • Fortnightly metaldehyde monitoring (September – December) at 200 locations.

Enough data has been collected to evaluate the effectiveness of engagement with farmers, and the persuasiveness of incentives to change farming practice. Several WTWs have seen fewer pesticide exceedances since the start of F4W, but whether these improvements are due to the catchment schemes or natural variations is uncertain at this stage. Although the signs are encouraging, it is likely to take at least five more years of monitoring to be able to say with confidence whether F4W has been successful in consistently reducing peak pesticide concentrations.

Lessons learnt

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1. Developing our schemes to enable us to cater for, and be flexible to, an extensive range of farms has been important for the success of F4W. Carrying out farmer feedback surveys and independent annual audits has allowed us to continually learn and adapt our schemes to meet farmer needs and expectations.

2. Catchment management is a long term solution in terms of water quality improvements, especially in groundwater catchments where travel times can be 10’s of years. We have needed to develop a way of monitoring the progress of the schemes to ensure we meet our long term water quality targets.

3. The success of our schemes and high interest from farmers meant that we needed to increase the number of Agricultural Advisors in our catchments. At the start of 2015 we had a ratio of 1 Advisor to 333 farmers. From January 2018 we recruited more partnership advisors which now gives us a ratio of 1 Advisor to 210 farmers.

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Catchment and subcatchment Select a catchment/subcatchment Edit the catchment and subcatchment details (affects all case studies in this subcatchment) Catchment River basin district Severn River basin Subcatchment River name Area category Area (km2) Maximum altitude category Maximum altitude (m) Dominant geology Ecoregion Dominant land cover Waterbody ID Site Edit site Name WFD water body codes WFD (national) typology WFD water body name Pre-project morphology Reference morphology Desired post project morphology Heavily modified water body National/international site designation Local/regional site designations Protected species present Invasive species present Species of interest Dominant hydrology Dominant substrate River corridor land use Average bankfull channel width category Average bankfull channel width (m) Average bankfull channel depth category Average bankfull channel depth (m) Mean discharge category Mean annual discharge (m3/s) Average channel gradient category Average channel gradient Average unit stream power (W/m2) Project background Edit project background Reach length directly affected (m) Project started 2015/04/01 Works started Works completed Project completed Total cost category Total cost (k€) Benefit to cost ratio 1:4":4" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 1. Funding sources Cost for project phases Phase cost category cost exact (k€) Lead organisation Contact forename Contact surname Investigation and design Stakeholder engagement and communication Works and works supervision Post-project management and maintenance Monitoring Reasons for river restoration Edit reasons for restoration Mitigation of a pressure Water Quality Hydromorphology Biology Physico-chemical Nutrient concentrations, Specific synthetic pollutants, Specific non-synthetic pollutants Other reasons for the project Measures Edit Measures Structural measures Bank/bed modifications Floodplain / River corridor Planform / Channel pattern Other Non-structural measures Management interventions Social measures (incl. engagement) Other Monitoring Hydromorphological quality elements Edit Hydromorphological quality elements Element When monitored Type of monitoring Control site used Result Before measures After measures Qualitative Quantitative Biological quality elements Edit biological quality elements Element When monitored Type of monitoring Control site used Result Before measures After measures Qualitative Quantitative Physico-chemical quality elements Edit Physico-chemical quality elements Element When monitored Type of monitoring Control site used Result Before measures After measures Qualitative Quantitative Any other monitoring, e.g. social, economic Edit Other responses Element When monitored Type of monitoring Control site used Result Before measures After measures Qualitative Quantitative Monitoring documents Upload monitoring documents Additional documents and videos Upload additional documents Additional links and references Edit links and references Link Description http://https://www.stwater.co.uk/about-us/environment/catchment-management/steps1/ STEPS website http://https://www.ciwem.org/assets/pdf/Events/Past%20Presentations/DP18/2.3.1%20Paul%20Hulme.pdf • Diffuse Pollution: Evidence, Effective Practice and Lessons for Policy, Practice and Investment, CIWEM, 18th – 19th July 2018. http://https://esi-consulting.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Farming for Water-Dr Jodie Rettino-Severn Trent Water Ltd.pdf • Managing Catchment Resources Holistically – Bringing Together the Latest Ideas to Inform AMP7 and Beyond. May 17th 2018 Supplementary Information Edit Supplementary Information