A two day conference and seminar on 21 and 22 January 2013 held at Mary Sumner House, London provided policymakers, delivery agencies and land and water and catchment managers with an opportunity to learn about the latest research and to discuss the findings from the three Demonstration Test Catchments. Conference proceedings, including the programme, abstract and presentations are available to download here…
Day 1 Presentations The first two years
Setting the Scene
- Introduction and the Demonstration Test Catchment project – Bob Harris (DTC Secretariat)
- Demonstration Test Catchments overview – Dan McGonigle (Defra)
- Experimental approach to high-resolution water quality monitoring – Kevin Hiscock (UEA)
Check: “What’s the Problem” – understanding the situation
- Overview on characterising catchments – Dave Allen (BGS)
- The farm baseline survey – Andrew Lovett (UEA)
- Apportioning pollution sources using tracing – Adrian Collins (ADAS)
- Assessing impacts on ecological functioning – Iwan Jones (Queen Mary, University of London)
Plan: The Measures – which ones, where and how much?
- Overview on implementing groups of measures in DTC: “treatment trains” – Sean Burke
- Source control – targeting measures for arable tillage – Kevin Hiscock (UEA)
- Nutrient chemistry dynamics in headwater catchments: impacts of livestock farming and wetland mitigation – Penny Johnes (Univ of Reading)
- Intercepting the pathways – slowing the flow and trapping the sediment with multifunctional mitigation schemes – Paul Quinn (Newcastle Univ)
- Intercepting flow pathways or small farm wetlands trap sediment and nutrients and carbon – John Quinton (Lancaster Univ)
- Protecting the receptor – buffer strips efficacy – Martin Blackwell (N Wyke)
Do: Overcoming the barriers of acceptance and take-up
- Gaining farmers’ trust and using farmers’ diaries – Will Cleasby (Eden Rivers Trust)
- What kind of science for what kind of farmer? – Michael Winter (Univ of Exeter)
- Overcoming the barriers to take up – developing the DTC/CSF link– Antony Williamson & Phil Smith (EA)
Review: Do measures work? – evaluating and transferring results
- Collecting and interpreting the data – tracking a storm event – Clare Benskin (Univ of Lancaster), Fiona Grant (ADAS), Jennine Jonczyk (Univ of Newcastle), Charlotte Lloyd (Univ of Bristol) & Faye Outram (UEA)
- The DTC data base and what we will get out of it – Mike Dobson (Freshwater Biological Association)
- The Catchment Change Management Hub – Clare Black (Cascade Consulting) & Marion Walker (Univ of Lancaster)
- Developing a catchment toolkit – integrating data streams to report environmental outcomes for targeted on-farm interventions – Adrian Collins (ADAS)
Day 2 The next two years
- Introduction: Science policy interface – Susie Willows (Defra)
- ‘What’s the problem?’ – Rachael Dils (EA)
- Mechanisms and Measures– James LePage (NE) & Lindsey Stewart (NE)
- ‘A catchment approach’ – Richard Cole (Defra)