Development of a prototype rainwater harvesting decision support tool to reduce water and climate-related risks in UK agriculture and horticulture

2022年的干旱突出了农民和种植者获得可靠供水以支持高价值灌溉作物生产的严重限制。受保护的园艺部门特别容易受到缺水的影响，因为所有作物需水都必须通过灌溉来满足。雨水收集(RWH)为软果企业缓解水资源短缺提供了一种重要的替代方案，同时也提供了防洪的好处。虽然许多软果企业有兴趣在农场开发RWH系统，以减少对公共总干水供应和/或直接抽水的依赖，但他们缺乏必要的工具和知识，在日益严重的水资源短缺和气候不确定性的条件下，支持更明智的决策和风险管理。因此，这个为期两年的可行性项目的目的是开发一个基于网络的原型工具，支持农场企业和从事农业和园艺行业的人更好地了解安装雨水收集系统和相关存储的水文适宜性、技术可行性和经济可行性，以减少农场水和气候对生产的风险。在这个项目中，将为软果行业开发原型，以评估商业效益(生产力)和减少对环境的影响(减少直接抽水和自来水使用)的范围，以及增加弹性(减少受用水限制的影响)。我们未来的目标是扩大和扩大对其他农业(牲畜、家禽)和园艺(HNS和观赏植物)子部门的方法，以最大限度地提高影响和行业利益。该工具将为计算适合它们情况的最有效的RWH系统提供关键的农场业务支持，考虑到当地气候以及关于种植面积、作物组合、建筑基础设施、水源和可用存储的农场信息。RWH工具还将帮助那些拥有现有RWH系统的农民评估其系统的相对性能，并确定改善雨水自给自足的措施；使没有RWH系统的农民能够评估潜在的资源效益，包括设计和管理方案，以及自来水节约成本；以及协助其他参与设计新开发的RWH系统的人，就RWH性能和储水量之间的权衡做出明智的决定，以推荐最适合当地农场情况的系统。

The drought in 2022 highlighted the severe limitations on farmers and growers having access to reliable water supplies to support high-value irrigated crop production. The protected horticulture sector is particularly vulnerable to water shortages given that all the crop water requirements must be met from irrigation. Rainwater harvesting (RWH) provides an important alternative for alleviating water scarcity for soft fruit businesses whilst also providing flood control bene?ts. While many soft fruit businesses are interested in developing RWH systems on-farm to reduce their dependence on public mains water supplies, and/or direct abstraction, they lack the necessary tools and knowledge to support more informed decision-making and risk management under conditions of increasing water scarcity and climate uncertainty.The aim of this two-year feasibility project is to therefore develop a prototype web-based tool that will support farm businesses and those engaged in the agricultural and horticultural sectors to better understand the hydrological suitability, technical feasibility, and economic viability for installing rainwater harvesting systems and associated storage to reduce on-farm water and climate risks to production. In this project, the prototype will be developed for the soft fruit sector to assess business benefits (productivity) and scope for reducing environmental impacts (reduced direct abstraction and mains water use) and increased resilience (reduced exposure to water restrictions). Our future ambition is then to up-scale and expand the approach to other agricultural (livestock, poultry) and horticultural (HNS and ornamentals) sub-sectors to maximise impact and industry benefits.The tool will provide critical farm business support for calculating the most effective RWH system for their circumstances, taking into account local climate as well as farm information on cropped areas, crop mixes, building infrastructure, water sources and available storage. The RWH tool will also assist those farmers with existing RWH installations to evaluate the relative performance of their systems and to identify measures to improve rainwater self-sufficiency; enable farmers that do not have RWH systems to evaluate potential resource benefits, including design and management options, and mains water saving costs; and assist others involved in design of RWH systems for new developments to make informed decisions regarding the trade-offs between RWH performance and water storage capacity to recommend systems that are best suited to the local farm circumstances.