Upstream Thinking
Catchment management has increasingly become the chosen approach to reduce both point source and diffuse pollution in freshwater from agriculture. Our research is at catchment scale; it aims at understanding and quantifying the impact of such programme on both water quality and financial savings for water utilities.
About the project
The research project aims to understand and quantify the changes brought about through the Upstream Thinking programme, South West Water’s catchment management initiative. The work focuses on five catchments across Devon and Cornwall, and two catchments in the Bournemouth area, each presenting distinct water quality challenges, including dissolved organic carbon, colour, turbidity, taste and odour compounds, metals, and reservoir eutrophication driven by nutrient inputs.
Using a bespoke monitoring approach for each site, the project has three main objectives
-
To map and characterise the spatial extent and type of Upstream Thinking interventions aimed at reducing diffuse and point-source pollution.
-
To monitor changes in raw water quality at water treatment works (WTWs), using a combination of high-frequency data collected by South West Water and targeted in situ monitoring within catchments.
-
To link observed water quality changes to treatment processes, in order to quantify operational and financial implications, including impacts on chemical dosing, treatment efficiency, and resilience under future pressures.
In doing so, the project provides an evidence base to support catchment-based investment decisions, regulatory reporting (e.g. WINEP), and long-term water quality management under changing environmental and climatic conditions.
Project Team
- , Professor of Earth Surface Processes
- , Research Fellow
- , Research Fellow
- , Research Associate
- , Research Associate
- Cameron Clark, Senior Research Technician (Field)
- Chris White, Senior Research Technician (Lab)
Funded by
- (SWW)
Project partners
Download the report
- Executive summary
- Background and context
- Methods for understanding changes in water quality
- Understanding background conditions and patterns of change
- Mapping catchment interventions
- Water quality modelling
- Argal Reservoir
- Drift Reservoir
- Upper Tamar Lake
- The River Cober
- The River Fowey
- The River Exe
- The Headwater of the Exe
- Concluding remarks and future research
- Appendices