The Environment Agency has provided indicative, catchment-scale source apportionment and estimated diffuse sector reductions required to meet protected area water quality target

The Environment Agency has published a new report highlighting indicative, catchment-scale source apportionment and estimated diffuse sector reductions required to meet protected area water quality targets.

Although the results are indicative, and not designed to inform specific on-the-ground measures, they do suggest that rural land use sources of nutrients dominate most catchments, particularly rivers.

In almost all catchments, the Agency estimates the ‘fair share’ reduction required by the diffuse sector to be several times greater than the estimated reduction in losses achieved when applying catchment-wide rural land management measures. This is where additional or alternative measures would need to be explored to achieve the diffuse sector share of the target.

Read more and download the executive summary and full report.