UK Freshwater Quality Programme Webinar: QUANTUM project update

Dr Ana Castro-Castellon and Prof Penny Johnes (University of Bristol) and Dr Tolulope Lawrence (University of Bath) will present on project progress.

QUANTUM is one of the 5 projects which form the UK Freshwater Quality Programme, and is led by Professor Penny Johnes, University of Bristol.

Project information:

Livestock farming is the dominant farming type and source of organic matter pollution in UK freshwaters, with over 9.65m cattle and 32.7m sheep on 10m hectares of grassland, representing 57% of all agricultural land in the UK.

When livestock excreta are flushed to waters it changes its physical, chemical and ecological quality and function. This material contains inorganic nutrient contaminants typically included in routine water quality monitoring programmes across the UK, but also contains many other compounds which are not monitored.  These include nutrient-rich organic matter, pathogens, pharmaceuticals and hormones likely to drive significant damage to freshwater ecosystems, and presenting a persistent problem for recreational water use, fisheries and shellfisheries and drinking water abstracted from livestock farming catchments.

Increases in water temperature and alterations in flow regime due to climate change will accelerate the biological processing of this material in freshwaters, while increased frequency of rainfall events predicted for the UK may overwhelm on-farm storage capacity, confounding efforts to reduce livestock farming impacts on UK freshwaters.

QUANTUM will deliver new understanding on how these stressors, environmental characteristics and management efforts interact to drive changes in UK water quality in livestock-dominated catchments.

Project partners: DEFRA, Natural Resources Wales, Natural England, UK Water Industry Research, Wessex Water, Welsh Water and Harper Adams University

Project website: quantumfreshwaters.org

Twitter: @QuantumFreshwtr