Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Identified gaps in
knowledge
FD2114
FD2120
Detection of
change
EIT36-05-017
High quality datasets
SCaMP
CHASM
Pontbren
Belford
Modelling to improve
prediction
FREE
FRMRC
Decision
support
MDSF
Fig. 2.4
Integrated land use management research programme. CHASM, Catchment Hydrology and Sustainable
Management; FREE, FloodRisk fromExtreme Events; FRMRC, FloodRiskManagement ResearchConsortium;MDSF,
Modelling and Decision Support Framework; SCaMP, Sustainable Catchment Management Plan.
cooperative concerned with sustainable upland
agriculture, involving 10 hill farms and over
1000ha of agriculturally improved pasture and
woodland.
The farmers' perception is that changes to land
management, and in particular changes to grazing
densities and animal weights, have changed runoff
response. Although land use has changed relative-
ly little since the 19th century, between the 1970s
and 1990s dramatic changes in farming intensity
took place; sheep numbers increased by a factor of
six, and animal weights doubled.
The current scales of research range from ex-
perimental plots to an 18-km
2
catchment, includ-
ing three first-order streams. The experiments
focus on soil properties and runoff processes, based
on plot and hillslope scale measurements nested
within instrumented first- and second-order
catchments (Marshall et al. 2008).
and that deployed by the UK Environment
Agency.
Instrumenting mesoscale catchments is diffi-
cult and expensive, so a custom-designed
approach was developed, in which mobile and
permanent instrumentation were used to opti-
mum effect. In the case of the Eden catchment,
the investigators have been particularly fortunate
in capturing multiscale data for some major floods
that occurred in 2004 and 2005 (Mayes et al. 2006);
the 2005 flood inundated the city of Carlisle.
Figure 2.5 illustrates how the hydrograph for the
2004 flood changes with increasing scale.
Although land use management changes have
not been a specific focus of the CHASM pro-
gramme, the resulting multiscale data for the
2004 and 2005 floods can be used for testing
and validating new modelling approaches across
a range of scales. The CHASM experimental
design approach has also served as a blueprint
for other multiscale experiments, such as in the
Hodder, discussed below.
The SCaMP/Hodder multiscale experiment
Under the United Utilities Sustainable Catch-
ment Management Plan (UU SCaMP) being im-
plemented in the Upper Hodder catchment,
northwest England, extensive changes are being
made to land use/management - see the scoping
study carried out by Newcastle University for
The Pontbren multiscale experiment
The Pontbren experiments are described in detail
in Chapter 3. Pontbren, situated in the head-
waters of the River Severn in Wales, is a farmers'
