Impacts of farm-scale ecosystem management on water quality in intensively managed grasslands

拟议的工作将评估农场规模的土壤和水资源管理是否能够切实改善生态系统质量。这项研究将在英格兰西南部的北怀克研究所（Rothamstead Research的一部分）进行。这项研究将利用一个独特的，农场平台实验，这将开始开始之前，该项目的开始。农场平台内的三个地点将被管理，以提供沿着生产力梯度的不同情景，这将代表农场规模生态系统管理的不同方法。收集数据的目的是：（1）确定每种情景下的土壤和植被状况;（2）监测每种情景下一级沟渠和支流的水质响应;（3）评估（通过持续监测）不同的管理技术是否影响了水质，如果影响，影响程度如何。将着重强调需要在定量但不确定的框架内评估水质变化，并将采用适当的统计技术（地质统计学、（协）方差分析）来做到这一点。因此，该项目将了解农场规模管理对水质的直接影响，提供与水框架指令（WFD）2015年目标直接相关的证据。博士生将在英国领先的地理系和英国领先的草原环境科学研究所之一接受各种领域和分析技术的培训。学生将在一个充满活力的，协作的环境中工作，重点是团队合作（在整个农场平台），以实现个人目标。监督和培训将根据学生的个人需求量身定制，重点是一对一的培训，特别是在UKAS认证的实验室，国际可转移的分析技能将是学生培训的主要内容。因此，该项目代表了一个很好的机会，进行一个高质量的研究计划，这是既相关的英国政府在满足WFD的目标，并提供国际相关的科学，在土地管理和水质之间的联系的强大的理解是迫切需要的时候。

The proposed work will assess whether the farm-scale management of soil and water resources can deliver tangible improvements to ecosystem quality. The study will be based in the intensively-managed grasslands of south west England, at the North Wyke Research Institute, part of Rothamstead Research. The research will take advantage of a unique, Farm Platform experiment, which will begin just prior to the start of the project. Three sites within the Farm Platform will be menaged to provide different scenarios along a gradient of productivity, which will represent different approaches to farm-scale, ecosystem management. Data will be collected (1) to characterise the status of soils and vegetation under each scenario, (2) to monitor the water quality responses of first-order ditches and tributaries from each scenario and (3) to assess (via continued monitoring) whether varying management techniques have influenced water quality and if so, by how much. A strong emphasis will be placed on the need to assess change in water quality within a quantitative, yet uncertain framework and appropriate statistical techniques will be employed (geostatistics, analysis of (co)variance) to do this. The project will therefore deliver an understanding of the immediate effects of farm-scale management upon water quality, providing evidence that will be directly relevant to the 2015 goals of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The PhD student will be trained in a wide variety of field and analytical techniques, within one of the UK's leading Geography Department's and the leading UK institute in grassland environmental science. The student will work in a vibrant, collaborative environment, with a strong emphasis on team-working (across the Farm Platform) to achieve individual goals. Supervison and training will be tailored to the individual needs of the student, with an emphasis on one-to-one training particularly in the UKAS accreditted laboratories, where internationally-transferrable analytical skills will be a major element of the students' training. The project thus represents a strong opportunity to conduct a high quality research program that is both relevant to the UK Government in meeting the objectives of the WFD and delivers internationally-relevant science, at a time when robust understanding of the link between land management and water quality is desperately needed.