D-Risk2: Multi-scale management of irrigation abstraction and drought risks in UK

干旱突出了灌溉者面临的重大风险，不仅是通过许可证获得足够的可用水量，而且由于在干旱期间实施自愿和/或强制性限制，其许可证用水的可靠性也受到影响。虽然NE/N017471/1开发了D-Risk网络工具（www.d-risk.eu）来了解干旱期间许可用水不足的风险，但它没有解决另一个重要方面，即由于自愿或强制性（第57条；Hands Off Flow）限制而获得提取用水的可靠性。政府提出的抽象化改革需要得到对水需求和水资源获取可靠性的明确循证评估的支持，特别是在对灌溉和环境风险及经济后果的反应最高的干旱期间。然而，没有可用的工具来支持环境署工作人员和自然英格兰集水区敏感的农业官员在关于农业用水需求的对话中使用基于集水区的方法，也没有工具来支持灌溉农业企业在干旱事件期间客观地评估其抽水量的可靠性。该提案将通过使用新开发的方法来评估NE/L010186/1和NE/L010208中农业和水文研究的整合开发的抽象可靠性，为NE/N017471/1提供重要的附加值。为响应国家和地区项目合作伙伴的明确需求，本项目将开发D-Risk决策支持网络工具（D-Risk2）的增强版本，增加功能，以评估干旱事件期间抽象限制（自愿和强制性）和灌溉量不足的联合风险，并提供支持，告知长期战略选择，以协调干旱风险与集水区和商业规模的水可用性。D-Risk2工具将支持有关未来水交易机会、许可证减少以及农场资源投资（例如高流量冬季水库）的需求和规模的决策。因此，本KE提案旨在开发一种新工具（D-Risk2），该工具将：-使EA能够更好地了解触发自愿和/或强制性抽象限制的过低流量的国家时空风险；-为环境评估局和国家环境评估局的工作人员提供一个公开可用的工具，以评估当地灌溉供需平衡和可靠性，以支持与抽水者团体和灌溉者讨论以集水区为基础的方法，以改善集水区水资源的集体管理和使用，从而提高透明度和信任，特别是在灌溉需求集中、水资源紧张的集水区；-为抽水者团体提供一个工具，帮助他们确定水交易的机会，以增加高价值的粮食生产，并最大限度地提高灌溉的经济效益；-使个别农场企业能够严格评价其商业计划和灌溉基础设施投资，以达到未来可接受的干旱和水资源水平。该项目涉及一个小型但综合的团队，包括EA、自然英格兰、英国灌溉协会、NFU和ESWAG。ESWAG是一个由80家农场企业组成的抽水机组织。

Droughts highlight the important risks faced by irrigators in not only having access to sufficient volumes of water available through their licence but also to the reliability of their licensed water due to imposition of voluntary and/or mandatory restrictions during droughts. Whilst NE/N017471/1 developed the D-Risk webtool (www.d-risk.eu) to understand the risks of having insufficient licensed water during drought, it did not address an additional important aspect which is the reliability of that access to water for abstraction either due to voluntary or mandatory (Section 57; Hands Off Flow) restrictions. Abstraction reforms being proposed by the government need to be supported by clear evidence-based assessments of the need for water and the reliability of access to water resources, particularly during droughts when the responses to irrigation and environmental risks and economic consequences are highest. However, there are no tools available to support Environment Agency staff and Natural England catchment sensitive farming officers in using a catchment-based approach in dialogues regarding agricultural water needs, and for irrigated farming businesses to objectively assess their abstraction reliability due to restrictions during drought events.This proposal will provide significant added-value to NE/N017471/1 by using newly developed methods for assessing abstraction reliability developed through integration of agricultural and hydrological research within NE/L010186/1 and NE/L010208. In response to an identified need from our national and regional project partners, this project will develop an enhanced version of the D-Risk decision support webtool (D-Risk2) with added functionality to evaluate the joint risks of abstraction restrictions (voluntary and mandatory) and insufficient irrigation volumes during drought events, and provide support to inform longer-term strategic options for reconciling drought risk with water availability at catchment to business scales. The D-Risk2 tool will support decision-making regarding the future opportunities for water trading, licence reductions and the need for and scale of on-farm resource investment (e.g. high flow winter storage reservoirs). This KE proposal therefore sets out to develop a new tool (D-Risk2) which will:- Enable the EA to better understand the national spatio-temporal risks of excessive low flows that trigger voluntary and/or mandatory abstraction restrictions;- Provide the EA and NE staff with a publically-available tool to assess the irrigation supply-need balances and reliability at a local-scale to support Catchment-based Approach (CaBA) discussions with water abstractor groups and irrigators to improve collective management and use of catchment water resources, thereby improving transparency and trust, particularly in water-stressed catchments where irrigation demand is concentrated;- Provide water abstractor groups within a tool to help them identify opportunities for water trading to increase high-value food production and maximise the economic benefits of irrigation, and;- Enable individual farm enterprises to critically evaluate their business plans and irrigation infrastructural investments to achieve acceptable future levels of drought and water resources.The project involves a small but integrated team involving the EA, Natural England, UK Irrigation Association, NFU and ESWAG, a water abstractors group with 80 farm businesses.