KE Fellowship: Sediment matters - using recent advances to unlock effective catchment decision-making

KE 奖学金：沉积物很重要 - 利用最新进展来解锁有效的流域决策

• 批准号: NE/V018701/1
• 负责人: Janet Richardson
• 金额: $ 21.81万
• 依托单位: University of Leeds
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FV018701%2F1
• 关键词: KE; Fellowship; Sediment; matters; using

We live and work in river catchments, they host our agricultural areas, green spaces, and urban centres. Rivers provide drinking water, essential for humans and nature to survive, provide jobs and act as key areas for recreation. Our society is facing many environmental challenges in our landscapes and rivers (e.g., flooding, water quality), in a changing climate, safeguarding this environment and ensuring resilience is key. A critical component of river catchments is sediment - organic and inorganic particles that cover a wide range of sizes and composition. Understanding how sediment behaves within our river catchment systems will ensure sustainability as sediment affects multiple aspects of catchments being healthy. Erosion, transport, and deposition of sediment in river catchments are natural processes, which are strongly influenced by human activities. Sediment is associated with anthropogenic pollutants (e.g. microplastics), soil erosion and carbon loss, water treatment costs, aquatic ecology and biodiversity, and the contentious issue of dredging and flood risk. Recent advances in NERC funded sedimentological research, including using satellite imagery, can have a transformative impact on integrated catchment management if fully incorporated into decision-making processes. My work will benefit the many organisations and communities working and living in river catchments. The UK is moving towards payment for public goods in the context of the Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMs), Brexit, and 'Building Forward Better'. Recent high profile studies showed that of the 86% of UK rivers failed to meet ecological good standard, and 40% of these failures were due to run off from agricultural land. There is a large demand from stakeholders to know more about how best to deal with sediment within their catchments. This fellowship aims to reduce the knowledge gap between researchers and catchment practitioners (statutory, charities, industry) by translating recent advances in understanding of sediment erosion, transport and deposition into catchment decision-making processes to deliver benefits in water quality, natural flood management and payment for outcome approaches. The fellowship will demonstrate how NERC science is being used in practical applications in catchment management. The proposed work includes: 1) understanding what information is needed for practitioners to make decisions and the gaps that could be filled by NERC Science, 2) collating information on the costs associated with sediment, 3) demonstrating how earth observation (e.g., satellite) data can be used by practitioners, 4) secondments into organisations to rapidly embed NERC science into current and future projects, and 5) a community of practice, which will allow NERC researchers and practitioners to have a forum to discuss the latest research, best practice and shared challenges. The fellowship will work with a range of organisations including the Environment Agency, Natural England, Yorkshire Water, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Ricardo Energy and Environment who have different viewpoints, all outputs will be co-designed to ensure maximum impact and reach. The main impacts from this fellowship will be knowledge exchange across a wide range of sectors ensuring NERC science is embedded into cost-effective catchment management decisions, strengthened business cases, increased landowner engagement, and long-lasting networks.

我们在河流流域生活和工作，它们是我们的农业区、绿色空间和城市中心。河流提供人类和自然生存所必需的饮用水，提供就业机会，并作为娱乐的关键区域。我们的社会正面临着许多环境挑战，在我们的景观和河流（例如，在气候变化的情况下，保护这一环境并确保复原力是关键。河流集水区的一个关键组成部分是沉积物-包括各种大小和组成的有机和无机颗粒。了解沉积物在我们的河流集水系统中的行为将确保可持续性，因为沉积物影响集水系统健康的多个方面。流域泥沙的侵蚀、输移和淤积是一个自然过程，受人类活动的强烈影响。沉积物与人为污染物（如微塑料）、土壤侵蚀和碳损失、水处理成本、水生生态和生物多样性以及有争议的疏浚和洪水风险问题有关。最近在NERC资助的沉积学研究方面取得的进展，包括使用卫星图像，如果充分纳入决策过程，可以对流域综合管理产生变革性影响。我的工作将使许多在河流流域工作和生活的组织和社区受益。在环境土地管理计划（ELMs）、英国退欧和“建设更好”的背景下，英国正朝着公共产品支付的方向发展。最近一项备受瞩目的研究表明，英国86%的河流未能达到生态良好标准，其中40%是由于农田径流。利益攸关方大量要求更多地了解如何最好地处理其集水区内的沉积物。该奖学金旨在减少研究人员和流域从业人员（法定机构，慈善机构，行业）之间的知识差距，将对沉积物侵蚀，运输和沉积的最新进展转化为流域决策过程，以实现水质，自然洪水管理和成果支付方法的好处。该奖学金将展示NERC科学如何在集水区管理的实际应用中得到应用。拟议的工作包括：1）了解从业人员做出决策所需的信息以及NERC科学可以填补的空白，2）整理与沉积物相关的成本信息，3）展示地球观测（例如，实践者可以使用NERC卫星数据，4）借调到组织中，将NERC科学快速嵌入到当前和未来的项目中，以及5）实践社区，这将使NERC研究人员和实践者有一个论坛，讨论最新研究，最佳实践和共同挑战。该奖学金将与一系列组织合作，包括环境署，自然英格兰，约克郡水，约克郡野生动物信托基金，Nidderdale杰出自然美景区和里卡多能源与环境，他们有不同的观点，所有产出将共同设计，以确保最大的影响和影响。该奖学金的主要影响将是广泛的部门之间的知识交流，确保NERC科学嵌入到具有成本效益的流域管理决策中，加强商业案例，增加土地所有者的参与和持久的网络。