View
0
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
The role of water catchment
monitoring in NERC and the Green
Economy Programme
Dr Andrew Bowen
Introduction
• What is the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)?
• What do we do?
– Summary of programmes
– Relevance of catchment monitoring
• NERC Research Centres
– Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH)
– British Geological Survey (BGS)
– Case studies
• Green Economy initiative
• Summary
• The largest funder of environmental research in the UK
• The main UK agency for funding, managing research,
training and knowledge exchange in environmental
sciences
• We use our budget of ~£400m to fund research in
Universities and our own Research Centres:
– Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
– British Antarctic Survey
– British Geological Survey
– National Oceanographic Centre
• We also work with many national and international
partners to deliver research
What is NERC?
Investments in water
Virtual Observatory £1.7m
Changing Water Cycle £10.1m
Macronutrients £9.5m
Flood Risk and Extreme Events £7.4m
Responsive Mode £3.5m/year
Network of Sensors £5m
LOCAR (completed) £10m
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Sustainability £13m
Valuation of Biodiversity and Natural Resources £500k
• Our changing climate and society is radically affecting
the water cycle in some areas of the world
• The CWC programme aims to:
1. Develop a quantitative understanding of changes taking
place in the global water cycle
2. Improve predictions of water movement around the
water cycle on a decadal scale
3. To understand how local and regional scale hydrological
and biogeochemical processes are responding to the
changes in climate and land use
4. To understand the consequences of the changing water
cycle for water-related hazards and to improve
mitigation of these hazards
Changing Water Cycle
• Human activities have enhanced average phosphorus levels by 400% and nitrogen levels by 100%
• Nitrogen, carbon and phosphorus are pivotal in sustaining global geochemical cycle, protecting human health and ensuring healthy ecosystems
• The programme aims to:
1. Evaluate the nature and scale of macronutrient exchange between terrestrial, freshwater and atmospheric systems
2. Investigate the role of macronutrients on ecosystem functions (i.e. decomposition and productivity)
3. Determine implications of nutrient enrichment on other non-nutrient contaminants and their effects on human health and biodiversity
Macronutrients
• The FREE programme is involved in research to predict
floods minutes to weeks to seasons to decades ahead
• Is conducting research into the causes and propagation
of floods to help forecast and quantify flood risk, and
inform society about the likely effects of climate change
• Example projects
1. “Modelling groundwater flood risk in the Chalk aquifer
from future extreme rainfall events”
2. Exploitation of new data sources, data assimilation and
ensemble techniques for storm and flood forecasting
• More information at: www.free-uk.org
Flood Risk From Extreme Events
• The programme investigated how water enters, is
stored within and discharged from three rivers in
groundwater-dominated catchments
• Looked at the movement of sediments and chemicals
• Example:
– Tracked the movement of rainwater in the layers of soil
and rock
– Because of this scientists are now able to predict the
movement of water into the water table below
– They also found that it carried a cocktail of nutrients,
particularly in areas contaminated by agricultural
chemicals
• More information at: catchments.nerc.ac.uk
Lowland Catchment Research
• The UK spends at least £50 million per year on
environmental monitoring1
• But much of it is uncoordinated and fragmented1
• The Virtual Observatory is a partnership between NERC,
EA, Defra and WAG
• Aims to create an integrated community to address
research questions on water-soil systems at differing
locations
• Take advantage of the latest computing technology to
create a cyber-infrastructure network
– Allows exploitation of both traditional field
measurements and near real-time data
1. ERFF Report 02 – Strategic Analysis of UK Environmental Monitoring Activity 2007
Virtual Observatory
• Substantial environmental sensing research is already
undertaken, although mostly it is focused on
technologies at early stages of development
• This means that there are very few live sensor networks
for environmental research
• This programme focuses on deploying new
technological approaches, potentially in remote and/or
hostile environments
• NERC closed a call for proposals for three-year
collaborative projects on 15th April 2010
• Thirty applications were received and are being
reviewed
Network of Sensors
• Catchment monitoring is inherent in almost every
research programme we carry out on
water/biodiversity-related issues
• However, the programmes only generally last for 3 – 5
years
• Also the scale, environment and variables measured can
be entirely different in different research programmes
• The networks of sensors and virtual observatory
programmes are the only ones currently that deal
directly with monitoring and data management
• However…….
How does monitoring fit in?
NERC Research Centres
• The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is the UK's Centre of
Excellence for integrated research in terrestrial and
freshwater ecosystems and their interaction with the
atmosphere
• It is entirely or partly responsible for several long-term
monitoring projects, including:
– Countryside Survey
– Loch Leven
– Biological Records Centre
– Predatory Bird Monitoring Scheme
– Environmental Change Network
– Carbon Catchment
Centre for Ecology and Hydrology
• CEH have been conducting detailed water quality
studies on Loch Leven since 1968
• The Loch had regular problems with algal blooms, with a
particularly serious one in 1992
• This bloom was estimated to have cost the local
economy over £1m in a single year
• In 1985 CEH carried out a detailed study to identify the
cause of pollution (point sources of phosphorus
pollution)
• A management plan was enacted (at a cost of £4
million), based on the long-term CEH monitoring
• This reduced the phosphorus released into the lake by
60% over the next 10 – 15 years
Case Study – Loch Leven
• The British Geological Survey (BGS) is the nation's
principal supplier of objective, impartial and up-to-date
geological expertise and information for decision making
for governmental, commercial and individual users
• Involved in a wide variety of geological mapping,
research and consultancy across the globe
• Main team involved in catchment science and
monitoring is the Groundwater Science Team
– Groundwater mapping
– Continuation of LOCAR work
– Groundwater ecology
– Groundwater quality (collaboration with WaterAid)
British Geological Survey
• Malta had a serious problem with nitrate pollution in
groundwater, originating from a variety of sources
• There are two aquifers on the island, which has a large
agricultural sector
• A study between 2007 – 2009 found that the pollution
source was unlikely to be fertiliser and sewage-derived
nitrogen (as had been suspected)
• Instead the main sources were probably the leaching of
nitrate from cultivated soils and possibly manure piles
• This work enabled the Maltese government to bring in
effective controls on nitrate sources, although long-term
monitoring will be required to determine whether there
is a reduction in contamination
Case Study – Nitrate Time Bomb
• A component of the
Environmental Information Data
Centre (EIDC)
• Holds over 50 years of river flow
data from approximately 1,300
gauging stations around the UK
• Also approximately 25 years of
groundwater data from 170
boreholes (and historical data
from 3000 other sites)
• Hydrological summary produced
about the preceding month
Case Study – National Water Archive
NERC Green Economy Initiative
A successful green economy
• Makes optimal use of environmental resources and processes
• Understands environmental constraints and the process of
environmental change
• Develops and implements technologies and solutions that ensure
environmental sustainability
How will we achieve this?
• Adaptation of existing infrastructure (e.g. buildings, transport)
• Development of existing environmental sectors (e.g. water,
resource extraction, waste)
• Emergence of new technologies and services (e.g. ecosystem
services, geoengineering, sensing technologies)
What is a Green Economy?
Current Green Economy
CCS,
sequestration
And
geoengineeringWave and
tidal power
Buildings
and transport
Water
Food and
agriculture
Ecosystem
servicesInsurance
Carbon
accounting
and trading
Infrastructure Utilities
Financial toolsEmerging markets and technologies
Monitoring
Natural
Resource
Extraction
Oil and gas
Marine
Future Green Economy
Geo-
engineering
CCS and
sequestration Offshore
renewables
Land-based
renewables
Buildings
and transport
Water
Waste
management
Food and
agriculture
Ecosystem
servicesInsurance
Carbon
accounting
and trading
Infrastructure Utilities
Financial toolsEmerging markets and technologies
Monitoring
Natural
Resource
Extraction
Oil and gas
Low-carbon
manufacturingHigh value
consultancyMarine
NERC and the Green Economy
CCS,
sequestration
And
geoengineeringWave and
tidal power
Buildings
and transport
Water
Food and
agriculture
Ecosystem
servicesInsurance
Carbon
accounting
and trading
Infrastructure Utilities
Financial toolsEmerging markets and technologies
Monitoring
Natural
Resource
Extraction
Oil and gas
Marine
• Creation of environmental markets
– Financial (e.g. input to carbon accounting and trading)
– Technological (e.g. offshore renewables)
– Knowledge (e.g. ecosystem services)
• Exploitation of environmental science
e.g. water treatment systems
• Enabling of effective policymaking
e.g. climate change bill
What is the role of NERC?
• Long-term (2 – 10 years):
– Support the long-term visions of stakeholders
– Research programmes
– Technology transfer/commercialisation
• Short-term (1 – 2 years):
– Understand the long term vision of the industry and the major science questions that need answering
– Create networks within specific communities
– Research centres
– Technology programmes
What is the role of NERC?
• Our overall focus is on water security
• However this can be broken down into three main areas:
• Catchment management
• Water and the financial services
• Extreme events
What is our focus in the water sector?
• NERC currently has almost £60m worth of programmes in the
water area
• Only two of them deal directly with sensing and data management,
but sensing and data management are key components of almost
every research programme we commission
• Our Research Centres deal much more directly with long-term
catchment and site monitoring
• They also act as data centres to store and process the information
• The Green Economy initiative and LWEC programme are our
attempts to try to pull together all of our work on water and
interact with stakeholders
Summary
Dr Andrew Bowen
NERC Business Development Manager
Commercialisation and Innovation Team
e-mail: andrew.bowen@nerc.ac.uk
phone: 01491 692673
mobile: 07717 714693
Contact Information
Recommended