A perspective on the role of lowland, agricultural grasslands in contributing to erosion and water quality problems in the UK

✍ Scribed by R. E. Brazier; G. S. Bilotta; P. M. Haygarth

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 84 KB
• Volume: 32
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0360-1269
• DOI: 10.1002/esp.1484

✦ Synopsis

The recognition of soil erosion by water as an environmental problem in the UK did not occur until the early 1970s, when authors such as Evans (1971) challenged the perception that climate, topography and vegetation cover all contributed to ensure relatively low (in global terms) erosion rates (Hudson, 1967;Douglas, 1970;Fournier, 1972). Subsequent authors, including Boardman (2002), recognize Evans' work as a 'wake-up call', which has prompted a wide and varied body of research into soil erosion in the UK over the last 35 years. A review of this literature (see Boardman and Evans, 1994;Brazier, 2004;Evans, 2005, for comprehensive examples), however, demonstrates that almost all of this work relates to water erosion processes on lowland arable land or upland areas, with a generally implicit assumption that lowland grassland is devoid of on-site erosion processes and therefore does not contribute (or contributes minimally) to off-site erosion problems.

Recently, however, there has been a shift in emphasis from the on-site impacts of soil erosion (surface lowering, loss of soil productivity) towards off-site impacts, driven by the demands of the EU Water Framework Directive and the need to ensure water quality (Neal and Jarvie, 2005). This shift means that the contribution of lowland grassland environments to the sediment and nutrient budget of UK river catchments needs to be re-evaluated, as it has been almost completely overlooked, despite the fact that intensively managed, lowland grasslands, typified by intensive dairy systems, occupy 29% of the land area of England and Wales (Defra, 2005). Historically, there has been clear justification for the focus of erosion-related work to be on the more susceptible land use types, such as row crops or winter cereals (Robinson and Boardman, 1988; Walling and Quine, 1990;Evans, 1993); more recently, a limited but growing literature supports the need to reassess our understanding of grassland systems as contributors of sediment and associated nutrients to waterbodies (e.g.