From Field to Faucet: Protecting Our Food and Water with Smarter Soil Erosion Solutions

Marketing Paragraph: Statement of Purpose: We rely on soils to produce more than 95% of our food. However, soil erosion is not only putting the fertility of agricultural land at risk, but it’s also polluting drinking water quality, increasing flood risk, and destroying aquatic habitats. Soil degradation costs in the UK are approximately £1.2 bn per year, and climate change will only intensify this trend. The UK government recently launched the Sustainable Farming Incentives which will pay farmers to protect soils by growing cover crops on barren and vulnerable land and by reducing tillage intensity. This is an opportunity for farmers and water companies to collaborate. Experts have created several models predicting which fields have the highest risk of soil erosion, one of them being the Morgan-Morgan-Finney (MMF) model. However, this model fails to represent accurately soil erosion risk under the influence of cover crops and minimum tillage nor are the results validated against water quality data. The aim of this PhD is to update and improve the MMF so that it can be used as a decision support tool by farmers and water companies to reduce soil erosion for food production and improve drinking water quality. The objectives are to 1) take cover crop and minimum tillage measurements in fields across the UK to feed them into the model, 2) break down the model’s annual calculations into monthly calculations for finer predictions, 3) incorporate an algorithm that will identify the pathways leading to discharge of soil in rivers, and finally 4) evaluate the effectiveness of these modifications and validate the model results with water quality analyses conducted by water companies. The improved MMF model will encourage farmers, water companies, and the UK government to collaborate closer and prevent soil erosion to maintain sustainable food production and drinking water quality for everyone.

Full Abstract: Complete Proposal for Your Session:The current UK policy encourages water companies and farmers to collaborate and uptake minimum tillage and cover crops to reduce soil erosion’s impact on the environment, field productivity, and raw drinking water quality. The aim of this PhD is to further improve the functionality of the modified Morgan-Morgan-Finney (mMMF) model as a decision support tool for water companies and land managers to target management options to reduce runoff and control soil erosion on farm to improve water quality. The objectives are to measure the key catch/cover crop and soil surface roughness parameters, reflect the inter- and intra-annual variability of soil erosion risk, identify flow paths and sediment discharge points, evaluate the model’s improvements, and validate its predictions. Crop and soil surface roughness parameters are measured in fields under typical rotations thanks to ArcGIS, Python, and advice from seed suppliers and catchment advisors. Crop parameters are obtained using photo analysis, manual measurements in quadrats, and values from literature, while the chain method is used to measure soil surface roughness. Inter- and intra- annual variability of soil erosion risk will be possible by modifying the mMMF’s temporal resolution. Incorporating a connectivity module based on a routing function will help identify flow paths and sediment discharge points. Critical evaluation and validation of the improved model will be based on water quality and remote sensing data. The improved model could be used as a user-friendly tool by land managers, water companies, and the government to monitor soil health and river water quality but also to encourage collaboration between farmers and water companies. It could also be tested to predict the impact of catch/cover crops and minimum tillage on soil erosion risk in a wider range of crop rotations.