Devon and Cornwall Soils Alliance Lower River Fal – Business Case
Sean Bennett
February 2022
© Mike Lyne (CC BY-SA 2.0)
1 Introduction
The following report provides a brief business case overview of the findings from the feasibility study area, which is one of nine across the Devon and Cornwall region funded by the Water Environment Grant (WEG). These waterbodies fail the WFD for sediment related issues and these business cases provide evidence as to type and location of soil and sediment issues, degree of farm advice and grant required to support business, regulatory issues/failings and whether current farming practices within the catchment are aligned with inherent land capability.
2 Lower River Fal
2.1 Background
The Lower River Fal is located on the south coast of Cornwall and is fed by two upstream waterbodies, including the Upper Fal and Gwindra Stream and is approximately 4100ha (Figure 1). While good, progressive farming methods are being practiced in the catchment, examples of soil compaction, run-off and erosion were observed from poor farming methods as well as other commercial and non-commercial sources.
2.2 Deskbased study
A desk based study for the Lower River Fal catchment was carried out prior to detailed field surveys and wet weather walkover work. The Westcountry Rivers Trust (WRT) and Environment Agency (EA) Geographic Information System (GIS packs) were integral to this desk study. The outputs from the WRT and EA GIS pack for the Lower River Fal catchment were useful as the initial stages of the feasibility study when collating all the relevant information and putting them to the different areas within the catchment. The maps have a usefulness at a ‘broad brush’ level, but become less useful when using at sub-catchment resolution. This is
particularly the case where the data is subdivided further, for example from broad crop types to individual crop types, especially once ‘ground truthed’ through fieldwork surveys, the remotely sensed maps are often proven to be incorrect. This is always going to be the case when trying to use national data sets at too high a resolution.
2.3 Literature summary
There is limited literature specific to the Lower Fal sub-catchment however there are some studies looking at water quality and soils for the River Fal Operational catchment which includes references to associated sub-catchments, such as the Lower River Fal, including:
- The River Fal catchment was included in the Cycleau Project 2003;
- Fal & Helford Special Area of Conservation Management Scheme;
- The West Cornwall Catchment Flood Management Plan;
- Defra and Environment Agencies River Basin Management Plan for the South West River Basin District;
- Findings for the Fal Operational Catchment;
- Cornwall SMP2: Fal, Camel and Fowey Estuaries;
- Fal Estuary Water Quality Investigation Jan 2009-April 2011 Case Study;
- CEFAS - Sanitary Survey Report (2010);
- The Fal Catchment Evidence Review (WRT)
The full list can is reviewed in the feasibility report, the list above were considered the most relevant
2.4 Fieldwork findings
This study found clear evidence that during periods of prolonged heavy rainfall there was soil erosion and run-off with associated pollutant loadings entering the River Fal via the Upper River Fal and Gwindra Stream catchments. All inputs into all watercourses within these three catchments drain down into the same location; the SSSI and SAC designated areas of the Ruan Creek and the Upper Fal Estuary.
The study found the main agricultural drivers of poor soil health in the Lower River Fal catchment were in the following sectors:
- Dairy (compacted maize cropping and slurry and manure management practices);
- Winter vegetable harvesting and poor choice of crop locations, expansion of contract grower business activity (brassica’s and potatoes);
- Late drilling and poor establishment of winter cereals and grass reseeds, bulb & flower cropping on unsuitable high-risk sloping fields;
- Insufficient farm infrastructure including slurry storage and slurry application timings and techniques;
- Outwintered livestock strip grazing on kale, poaching and compaction from livestock around badly positioned feeders and troughs, track erosion and compacted gateways and headlands.
The non-agricultural sources included:
- During times of high rainfall water quality in the catchment is adversely impacted by Storm Overflow stations as well as run off and erosion from commercial and derelict mining sites.
- Commercial and domestic Sewage Treatment Works;
- Road run-off;
- New housing developments with poor drainage.
2.5 Regulation
The Soil Mentor was asked a series of questions that related to the regulatory failings they observed in the catchment. However, it hasn’t been possible to collect the responses from the Soil Mentor for the Lower River Fal catchment. These can be added at a later date.
TBC
2.6 Land capability and landuse type
TBC
2.7 Solutions and recommendations
The recommendations extracted from the feasibility report include:
- Greater presence and action of EA enforcement and adequate enforcement of the Farming Rules for Water and NVZ rules;
- Keep enforcement of regulations within the EA. For clear messaging, ensure the roles of farm adviser and regulator are kept separate to avoid a blurring of roles;
- Increase the free farm advice and support for Countryside Stewardship applications.
- Provide specific soils management training, which can include high-risk cropping and field selection were relevant, aimed at contract grower business owners/managers and for their staff, including contract tractor/machinery operators;
- Incentivise change in behaviour for contract growers to encourage good soil management;
- Provide catchment specific capital grants;
- Increase water monitoring within the catchment.
2.8 Estimated cost of remediation
The approximate costs of addressing the pollution issues in the catchment are shown in Table 2
Table 2 – estimated costs and cost category for the recommended work in the Lower River Fal catchment.
Recommendation
Year 1 capital costs (grants @50%). with a focus on quick wins; soft engineering projects/NFM and non-building capital works.
Year 2 capital costs (grants @50%). Farm infrastructure building projects identified with largest benefits.
Year 3 capital costs (grants @50%). Machinery for soil remediation; formation of machinery ring, run by local contractor for different bits of kit.
Year 4. Machinery and farm infrastructure/soft engineering/non-building capital works.
Year 5 capital costs. Farm infrastructure.
5 years of Farm and specialist advice x 2 advisers (with differing specialism)
2.9 Risks and barriers associated with solutions
Estimated cost
Total cost £880k (medium)
The high impact risks associated with the approached outlined above identified by the Soil Mentor included:
• Lack of engagement from contract growers and particular groups of farmers;
• Lack of distinction between the supportive role of advisors and regulatory role of enforcement officers.
2.10 Benefits of change
- Reduction in soil loss.
- Increase in the health of the catchment’s soils.
- Increase in water quality through reduction in the amount of soil compaction, erosion and run-off and associated multiple pollutant loadings entering watercourses.
- Reduced flooding risk.
- Reduced nutrient enrichment of watercourses and local water bodies.
- Reduced risk of microbial, chemical and sediment pollution to wildlife and commercial shellfishery.
- Increased regulatory compliance.
- Benefits to local businesses. Cost savings for farmers related to natural capital. Increased realisation of inherent value or soils and organic manures. Decreased costs related to fertilisers, fuel use, infrastructure, wear and tear of machinery)
- Community, social and cultural benefits associated with a clean, natural environment supporting a healthier ecosystem.
- Development of local ecosystem services and natural capital.
- Carbon sequestration and retention through improved soil health and conservation.
2.11 Lessons learnt
The Covid 19 pandemic lockdown situation meant that direct cold calling was not possible. A mixture of online and on farm meetings were made with farmer contacts for some of the locations identified as having good and bad soil management and runoff issues. A few farmers were ok with face-to-face meetings on-farm, this was carried out at a two metre socially distance Video links through Microsoft Teams and Zoom or via phone meetings proved useful for engaging with the farmers
It would have been nice to have more adviser time allocated to the feasibility study, especially with a catchment in excess of 10,000 acres. This would have allowed more time to be spent with engaging with farmers and landowners, especially as Covid 19 made engagement tricky and slow going. More time for farmer engagement would have helped in revealing more detailed catchment specific information.
It would have been useful to have been provided a digital version of the map pack, in the format of GIS shapefiles The GIS pack would ideally include ‘zoomed in’ maps of the catchment, for example showing field boundaries (OS 1:2500 scale). If this isn’t possible within a document, then it would be good to have a access to a digital version to create our own bespoke maps for field working/recording.
An earlier start to the project’s timelines would have provided the advantageof seeing changes in cropping and land management over harvest period
The report template is too long and writing up the report to this set template/format took up an inordinate amount of time. Perhaps this could be reduced, filtered down to the essence of what is actually being asked, that is; ‘what are the problems with soil in the catchment’ and ‘How do we best fix it’.
The Maptionnaire is a useful tool. As it is in its early development there are understandably some user aspects that require fine tuning. Clarity on the anonymity of reporting and data protection with this tool would be useful.