Research Funding cycle: 2016-21

"Valuing Your Soils", is newly published guidance, which will help Scottish farmers, crofters and land mangers protect and improve their most valuable resources.

Natural Flood Management (NFM) (e.g. restoring watercourses, riparian tree planting, washland and wetland creation) is a core component of flood risk management strategies in Scotland. However little is known of its potential impact on the farming and land management communities, individual farm businesses, or the socioeconomic impacts and perceptions of its potential wide-spread introduction.

Water quality is generally good across Scotland. Yet, SEPA estimates that around 30% of water bodies are expected to be at less than the good status required by the Water Framework Directive at the end of 2015 due to the adverse effects of rural diffuse pollution. The most widespread diffuse pollution pressures include losses of nutrients, pesticides and faecal indicator organisms in runoff.

This report is in response to a request to develop a weight-of-evidence method to enable change in priority catchments to be recorded, understood, and interpreted in the context of catchment data. The report outlines the method for collecting and combining data to assess the effectiveness of the Rural Diffuse Pollution Plan that represents Scotland’s strategy to reduce water pollution caused by agricultural land use. The report also evaluates the efficacy of the method to monitor the progress of the strategy using data from selected priority catchments.

The Metropolitan Glasgow Strategic Drainage Partnership is made up of Scottish Water, Glasgow City Council, Scottish Canals, South Lanarkshire Council, Clyde Gateway, Scottish Enterprise, Renfrewshire Council, East Dunbartonshire Council and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) and represents an innovative approach to water management which meets the objectives of the Hydro Nation Agenda. Since its inception the partnership has sought innovative ways to manage urban water systems that are ultimately sustainable and support the continued growth of Glasgow.

This project carried out an international review of monitoring networks to identify and summarise innovative approaches to inform monitoring under the water Framework Directive. SEPA said "As we review our monitoring networks to support the second cycle of the River Basin Management Plan, it's very important that we learn from approaches and opportunities developed elsewhere.

This comprehensive review covers the sources, impacts, risks and monitoring of water related ‘known-unknowns’, including potential emerging contaminants of concern within Scottish watercourses; data availability; impact assessment on ground and surface water including WFD compliance (and coastal environments-Bathing Water Directive); and current and future risks, monitoring and assessment methodologies.

The purpose of this research is to produce a map that demonstrates the scope and scale of Scotland’s water sector and demonstrates how the different parts of the sector link together. It demonstrates how the decision making processes that influence, manage and control Scotland’s water resources are distributed throughout the sector. This research supports the Scottish Government’s Hydro Nation Strategy.

Farmers across Scotland were recently asked about soil science research needs. Drainage and soil structural damage were viewed to be the greatest concern.

Good soil structure and field drainage systems are key to achieving good water quality and minimising flood risk. They are also vital for agricultural productivity and in the greenhouse gas balance of many soil systems.