Catchment management

We want to prevent contamination of the water sources that we use, rather than investing in expensive and energy intensive treatment of water that has already suffered pollution. Catchment management is one way we try to do this.

Raw water quality problems can occur for a number of reasons, from land management practices to weather related events such as increased turbidity following intense rainfall. These provide water resource challenges.

For example, if current trends in nitrate levels continue unchecked we could lose up to 43 Ml/day of water resource – 8% of our available water resource – by 2015.

When water quality is threatened, eg, by pollution from nitrates and pesticides, options to deal with this issue include:

• tackling the pollutant at source through catchment management
• blending different water sources together
• building a treatment plant to remove the contaminant.

Catchment management is an important part of the solution which relies on the cooperation and participation of farmers, landowners and the Environment Agency (EA).

So what is it and what are its benefits?

Our catchment management advisers work alongside farmers and landowners to identify potential pollutant sources and find alternative land management practices.

This means being more innovative, providing a more sustainable option for improving raw water quality as it can prevent the need for building expensive, energy intensive treatment solutions, eg, by reducing the input of nitrates and pesticides at the source.

Where appropriate the catchment management approach represents a sustainable, long-term and relatively low cost solution to water quality issues.

Update for 2009-10

Catchment management work is progressing well and currently covers:

• 12 groundwater catchments with respect to nitrates 
  two surface water and one groundwater catchment for pesticides.

Reducing nitrates

Work over the last year has continued to raise awareness among catchment farmers and is having a measurable influence on their behaviour.

This is leading to reduced inputs of nutrients from fertilisers on to the land which will, in time, reduce nitrates in the groundwater.

Site specific issues, eg, overflowing and/or leaking slurry pits which contribute to short-term high peaks of nitrate, have also been identified in 2009-10 and solved in co-operation with the landowners.

Reducing pesticides

Improved management of pesticides in catchments often produces immediate benefits to water quality.

By promoting better storage and handling of pesticides we have helped stop them from entering both our surface water and groundwater sources. This has shown highly successful and rapid improvements in water quality.

In 2009-10 we continued to work with farmers on schemes for reducing groundwater contamination from pesticides as part of our ongoing programme to tackle the problem.