UK Freshwater Quality Programme Webinar - QUANTUM Project

Professor Penny Johnes and her team present an update on QUANTUM project progress.

QUANTUM (Quantifying the combined nutrient enrichment, pathogenic, and ecotoxicological impacts of livestock farming on UK rivers) is one of the 6 projects of the UK wide Freshwater Quality Programme.

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.

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.

Field sites: the Conwy, Bristol Avon and 50 further catchments across livestock farming regions in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the north and west of England.

Led by Professor Penny Johnes, University of Bristol including partners Lancaster University, Exeter University, Bangor University of Bath

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

Project website: quantumfreshwaters.org

This webinar is one of a series on a range of related topics organised by the Champions team for the NERC Freshwater Quality programme. The webinars are designed to help promote communications and interactions between researchers, the policy community, business and practitioners who can all shape future UK freshwater quality.

Each webinar includes a 30 minute presentation with time for questions afterwards. The presentations are recorded  -  watch the up-to-date playlist here.

To receive joining details for this event, please register for the mailing list of the UK Freshwater Quality Programme or email [email protected].