Supporting collaboration through innovative water sharing tool for high-value irrigated agriculture.

英国现有的取水许可制度导致水的利用效率低下。这限制了高价值灌溉农业和园艺业的作物生产力、业务增长和抗旱能力。个体种植者之间的协作用水共享旨在解决这些限制，而不需要水交易的高交易成本，但农业企业缺乏支持工具。本研究旨在开发一种概念验证应用程序，以英格兰东部Lark流域的灌溉企业为例，连接并支持农业企业共享水资源。该工具是通过与农业企业共同设计的过程开发的，将整合多个数据源和环境署的决策规则，以确定近乎实时的水资源共享机会。该项目建立在之前由克兰菲尔德大学与Lark Abstractors Group和环境署共同开展的水资源共享研究的基础上，并将实际展示赋予灌溉者识别和告知其水资源共享决策所需的解释数据的潜在好处。它还将促进更有效的水资源分配和利用，有助于降低抽水（能源）成本，从而支持该行业实现净零碳排放的目标。该项目将由一家农场商业咨询公司（Lindsay Hargreaves Ltd）领导，该公司位于Lark集水区，与许多当地农业企业建立了联系。他们将与克兰菲尔德大学的水科学研究所合作，后者将为该项目提供技术监督，帮助建立共享水的原型。

The existing abstraction licensing system in England results in inefficiencies in the utilisation of water. This constrains crop productivity, business growth and resilience to drought in high-value irrigated agriculture and horticulture. Collaborative water sharing between individual growers seeks to address these limitations without the high transactional costs of water trading, but farm business support tools are lacking. This study aims to develop a proof-of-concept application that connects and supports farm businesses in water sharing, using irrigated businesses in the Lark catchment in Eastern England as a case study. The tool, developed through a process of co-design with farming business, will integrate multiple data sources and Environment Agency decision-making rules, to identify near real-time water sharing opportunities. The project builds on previous water sharing research conducted by Cranfield University with the Lark Abstractors Group and the Environment Agency and will practically demonstrate the potential benefits of empowering irrigators with the interpreted data needed to identify and inform their water sharing decisions. It will also promote more efficient allocation and use of water helping to reduce pumping (energy) costs and thereby support the sector's targets for moving towards net zero carbon. The project will be led by a farm business consultancy (Lindsay Hargreaves Ltd) who are based in the Lark catchment and have established links with many local farming businesses. They will partner with the Water Science Institute at Cranfield University who will provide technical oversight to the project helping to build the water sharing prototype.