About water friendly farming
Testing the effectiveness of land management measures on water quality
Water Friendly Farming is a long-term collaboration between Freshwater Habitats Trust, Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust’s Allerton Project, the University of York, the Environment Agency and landowners in three Leicestershire catchments.
We’re testing the effectiveness of landscape-wide agri-environment measures for reducing the impact of rural land use on freshwaters and the services they provide.
Testing land management measures
Water Friendly Farming is one of the first projects to evaluate at the catchment scale the whole suite of land management measures that are being widely applied in lowland farmed landscapes. This includes: leaky dams to help control downstream flooding, buffer strips on river banks, settlement ponds, stream-side fencing to reduce livestock access to streams, woody debris dams, introducing soil and nutrient management techniques to reduce runoff, clean water ponds creation to maximise catchment-wide freshwater biodiversity and many others.
The project is being undertaken in a working agricultural landscape. Participation of, and feedback from, the farmers involved in the project is an integral part of the study: ensuring that the project has real-world relevance.
Agri-environment resources
Access resources from the Water Friendly Farming project and its partners.
History
Discover the history of this long-running demonstration research project.
Partners
Meet the partners behind the project.
"The project...provides a number of new conclusions for land managers and policy makers concerned with protecting the water environment. We have undertaken extensive programmes of dissemination and training with farmers, as well as learning from them, and are making results available to policy makers and others."
2016 Water Friendly Farming report.
Our partners