Delivery of Sandpit: Advanced Technology for Addressing Challenges in Water Runoff from Agricultural Land in the UK

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Water runoff from fields is a large, global economic and environmental challenge. It can lead to soil loss, pollution of surface waters, treatment costs to downstream users, maintenance costs for water courses and floods. The UK is at the forefront of research seeking to tackle such impacts via technical and policy measures delivered by research, regulatory and third sector organisations (e.g. NFU, and the farming community). Despite these efforts and some examples of progress, the issues and impacts remain largely unresolved.STFC has recognised that significant potential may exist in bringing its expertise, technology and facilities to the challenge of tackling runoff from fields by working with a range of other disciplines, including those more traditionally associated with the management of runoff. The anticipation is that STFC expertise and capabilities can bring about a step-change in resolving the issue. In order to explore the potential of STFC and other disciplines to evaluate the nature of the challenges and solutions afresh, STFC is planning to run a two day sandpit event to build multidisciplinary collaborations involving STFC-funded researchers. Based on the outcomes of the sandpit event, a number of small projects will be funded with the aim to deliver advanced technology solutions to water runoff.CEH will support the STFC by delivering the workshop and initial funding call, on the basis of CEH's respected position as an honest broker, our experience in the organisation and running of stakeholder engagement events, and technical authority on hydrology, flooding land-use and pollution; understanding of each being critical to addressing the challenge.