South East Water has been undertaking communications and trials with landowners under the Water Industry National Environment Program for the last few decades. Our catchment team looks to push innovation and new ideas where possible, and this has led to partnerships regarding work on the ground and data sharing with academic researchers.
Dry depositions, as a particulate nutrient, form part of the three-dimensional nitrogen inputs to land, which is often not considered within nutrient management programs (nutrient management programs work primarily in two dimensions at ground level). Water companies' work over the past few decades has highlighted the impacts of fertilisation, and the consequences are nutrient leaching, particularly to groundwater, affecting raw drinking water supplies.
As part of our delivery catchments, we consider efficient nutrient management plans, which often do not incorporate atmospheric deposition as a three-dimensional input. South East Water has teamed up with the Centre of Ecology and Hydrology(opens in a new tab) to consider innovative programmes of work and deliver innovative catchment solutions.
So what is the atmospheric deposition pilot project?
This pilot takes into consideration atmospheric deposition, ammonia (NH3), ammonium (NH4+), and nitrous oxide (NO) deposition (both wet and dry deposition).The primary interest for the pilot is reduced nitrogen in the gas, liquid, and particulate phases of NHx (reduced combined NH3 and NH4+), as this has the greatest impact upon land use and vegetation from dry deposition, particularly during the growing seasons.
The UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology created the data that has been made available. It is called Concentration-Based Estimated Deposition (CBED) data
Concentration Based Estimated Deposition atmospheric nutrient data was generated using UK emissions data from the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory, which were processed via the FRAME atmospheric chemistry transport model. Wind and rain data specific to each year was incorporated within the modelled data, and calibrated values were compared to measurements from the UKEAP network.
Permissions were gained from the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology to use and transform the data into a spatial dataset that can be used as part of a catchment-based approach to aid reductions of nutrient applications, which is hoped will, in turn, reduce field movement, thus reduction of mobilisation of sediment and pesticides at the field level.
The data for the Hartlake and Pembury Catchments can be seen below. The download link for this data can be found here via the following links:
Hartlake data(opens in a new tab)
Pembury data(opens in a new tab)
Capital grants
For South East Water Delivery Catchments, you can request 2022 dataset to pilot nutrient reductions on your own holdings – please view where you are using the below interactive maps, and use the request form below.
Data information
Limitation of data request - Please note that due to staff capacity and data restrictions, we might not be able to provide spatial data for all catchments, and all requests will be prioritised based upon deliverable areas as per the interactive map.
How to use the data
Data is supplied as a geo-referenced TIFF image dataset (please choose which is most appropriate).There is also a GIS layer file for those which wish to review the data in a geographical information system program, such as QGIS / Mapinfo / ArcGIS.
The data is designed to be utilised as part of the vector based GPS system, which can be uploaded using the operatives chosen interactive program.The intenstion of the data is to create a reduction variable, to veriable rate spreaders based upon the nutrient deposition data, based upon reduced ammonium oxides, in kilograms per hectare.
Pilot takes into consideration atmospheric deposition, NHx (reduced combined ammonia NH3 and ammonium NH4+), in its form as dry deposition is a particulate of concentrated nutrient. For completeness there is a wet deposition dataset for wetter seasons, so that it is possible to get an idea of potential atmospheric depositions throughout the year.
Spatial output is shared with farmers to incorporate into their precision farming GPS system, with the aim is to form a three-dimensional view of nitrogen inputs to land which is often not taken into consideration within nutrient management programs (nutrient management programs work primarily in two dimensions at ground level).
The pilot is in keeping with the work that water companies have been doing over the past few decades, in relation to highlighting the impacts of over fertilisation and the consequences particularly to groundwater.
This output is part of the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP), and part of our catchment engagement.
Atmospheric nutrient data was generated using UK emissions data from the National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory(opens in a new tab) which were processed via the FRAME (Fine Resolution Atmospheric Multi-pollutant Exchange) atmospheric chemistry transport model(opens in a new tab).
Wind and rain data specific to each year was incorporated within the modelled data, and calibrated values were compared to measurements from the UKEAP (UK Eutrophying and Acidifying Pollutants) network(opens in a new tab).
Data available as part of the UK Centre of Ecology and Hydrology (UK CEH) and Air Pollution Information System (APIS(opens in a new tab)) (https://www.apis.ac.uk/, has led to the creation of Concentration Based Estimated Deposition (CBED(opens in a new tab)) data