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