Visualising Pathogen & Environmental Risk: transition to a user-ready toolkit (ViPER II)

农业实践通过放牧牲畜的直接排便以及固体和液体肥料的应用，向牧场提供了大量粪便物质。为了最大限度地减少粪便微生物的比例，管理这种粪便负荷对牧场的空间和时间输入是很重要的，例如E。大肠杆菌，这些细菌可能会从粪便中被冲走，并在降雨后随径流转移到附近的水道。受污染的径流会导致我们的溪流、河流和海洋受到微生物污染。因此，科学家、环境管理者、流域管理者和政策制定者都渴望了解E。大肠杆菌在环境中生存和移动，以期更好地了解这些微生物的行为特征和数据，将提高我们模拟和预测它们与我们周围世界的相互作用和反应的能力。NERC资助的项目ReMOFIO（NE/J004456/1）开发了一个这样的模型，以提高我们对景观中微生物风险的大小和空间分布的理解。由此产生的ReMOFIO模型预测农业土地上的微生物风险水平，根据牲畜数量，耕作方法和E。大肠杆菌在环境条件下的生存模式（例如降雨和温度波动）。虽然该模型在结构上很简单，但其操作和功能最初并不是为了最大限度地提高那些从其使用中受益最多的人的吸收。作为回应，最初的VIPER项目采用了参与式方法，将一系列利益攸关方（监管机构、流域管理人员、科学家和农场网络）聚集在一起，以促进参与、审议和联合决策。通过一个结构化的知识交流过程，项目小组开发了一个免费提供的原型决策支持工具（DST），称为ViPER。ViPER DST提供了一个用户友好的界面，并允许没有特定建模技能或建模系统知识的最终用户利用现有的NERC科学和建模能力（例如ReMOFIO模型）来了解如何，何时以及在何处E。大肠杆菌的风险在农业用地上积累。然而，在目前的形式下，VIPER无法评估E。农田上的大肠杆菌源头，实际上会在降雨后流入河流和溪流。作为回应，VIPER II的目标是现在将我们的原型DST转换为E。大肠杆菌在田间、农场和集水区的风险，转化为一个用户现成的工具包，用于在真实的世界中提供农场建议和指导。为此，我们将联合收割机VIPER DST与另一个免费提供的NERC资助的水文风险测绘工具SCIMAP（NE/C508850/1）相结合。SCIMAP旨在确定景观中沉积物和营养物污染物的来源，重要的是，它绘制了径流如何将沉积物和营养物转移到土壤表面并进入水道。然而，SCIMAP目前并没有绘制景观中的微生物风险，因为与沉积物和营养物不同，细菌如E。大肠杆菌适应复杂的生命周期，并会随着时间的推移而死亡。相比之下，VIPER能够解释E.但缺乏预测大肠杆菌的能力。大肠杆菌随径流转移。现在有机会整合两个NERC资助的产出（ViPER和SCIMAP），以提供一个创新的DST，用于绘制集水系统中的微生物污染风险，并产生一个大于其各个部分之和的DST。由此产生的工具包将为微生物风险的陆基评估以及英国（及更远地区）环境监管机构和水行业的应用利益提供附加值。这是确保NERC资助的模型和数据通过创新性地将基础证据基础转换为相关最终用户可广泛访问的格式来产生现实世界影响的下一个关键步骤。

Agricultural practices contribute a significant amount of faecal material onto pasture via direct defecation by grazing livestock and through applications of solid and liquid manures. Managing the spatial and temporal input of this faecal loading to pasture is important in order to minimise the proportion of faecal microorganisms, e.g. E. coli, that may be washed from faecal sources and transferred in runoff to nearby watercourses following rainfall. Contaminated runoff can lead to microbial pollution of our streams, rivers and seas. Scientists, environmental regulators, catchment managers and policy-makers are therefore keen to understand how E. coli survives and moves in the environment with a view that better knowledge and data on the behavioural characteristics of these microorganisms will improve our ability to model and predict their interactions with, and responses to, the world around us. The NERC-funded project ReMOFIO (NE/J004456/1) developed one such model to improve our understanding of the magnitude and spatial distribution of microbial risks in the landscape. The resulting ReMOFIO model predicts levels of microbial risk on agricultural land, based on livestock numbers, farming practices and E. coli survival patterns under environmental conditions (e.g. rainfall and temperature fluctuations). While the model is structurally simple its operation & functionality was not originally designed to maximise uptake by those who would benefit most from its use. In response, the original ViPER project used a participatory approach to bring together a range of stakeholders (regulators, catchment managers, scientists and farm networks) to promote engagement, deliberation and joint decision-making. Through a structured process of knowledge exchange the project team developed a freely-available prototype decision support tool (DST) called ViPER. The ViPER DST provides a user-friendly interface and allows end-users without specific modelling skills or knowledge of a modelling system to take advantage of existing NERC science and modelling capability (e.g. the ReMOFIO model) to understand how, when and where E. coli risks accumulate on agricultural land. However, in its current form, ViPER is unable to evaluate what proportion of that E. coli source on agricultural land will actually end up in rivers and streams following rainfall. In response, the aim of ViPER II is to now transition our prototype DST, which maps E. coli risks at the field, farm and catchment scale, into a user-ready toolkit for providing on-farm advice and guidance in the real world. To do this we will combine the ViPER DST with another freely-available NERC-funded hydrological risk-mapping tool called SCIMAP (NE/C508850/1). SCIMAP was designed to identify the origins of sediment and nutrient pollutants in the landscape and importantly, it maps how runoff can transfer sediment and nutrients across the soil surface and into watercourses. However, SCIMAP currently does not map microbial risks in the landscape because, unlike sediment and nutrients, bacteria such as E. coli accommodate a complex life-cycle and will die-off over time. By contrast, ViPER is able to account for the die-off of E. coli but lacks the capacity to predict E. coli transfer with runoff. An opportunity now exists to integrate two NERC-funded outputs (ViPER & SCIMAP) to deliver an innovative DST for mapping microbial pollution risks in catchment systems and to produce a DST that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. The resulting toolkit will provide added value both to land based assessment of microbial risks, and to the applied interests of environmental regulators and the water industry in the UK (& further afield). This represents the next critical step in ensuring that NERC funded models and data deliver real-world impact through innovative conversion of the underpinning evidence-base into a format that is widely accessible by relevant end-users.