1. Do agri-environment schemes protect and improve freshwater ecosystems?
JI Jones1, JF Murphy1, S Anthony2, PS Naden3, A Arnold1, J Blackburn1,
CP Duerdoth1, A Hawczak1, JL Pretty1, P Scarlett3 & J Skates4
1 River Communities Group, Queen Mary, University of London, UK
2 ADAS, Wolverhampton, UK
3 CEH Wallingford, UK
4 Llywodraeth Cymru Welsh Government, Aberystwyth

2. Agri-environment schemes
Agricultural intensification across Europe over past 60 years associated with loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
During 1990s, EU-level response was formulated.
Pay farmers for the provision of environmental public goods and services (integrated into reforms of the CAP).
EU expenditure on agri-environment schemes (AES) for is nearly €20 billion.
The second half of the last century saw an increase in agricultural intensification and mechanisation throughout Europe.
While this lead to great gains in food production, it was associated with dramatic declines in many species and a deterioration in the amount and quality of many habitats, including freshwaters.
The mounting evidence of environmental damage brought an EU-level response in 1992 with the incorporation of agri-environment schemes into CAP reform.
Spending AES has increased year-on-year from €100 million in 1993 to its current level of at least €2.8 billion p.a.

3. Agri-environment scheme objectives
To reduce environmental risk, associated with modern farming, to:
biodiversity
water
soil
To preserve natural and cultivated landscapes
Broadly speaking AES aim to protect:
biodiversity (species and habitats)
water and soil (quality and quantity)
cultural features of the landscape
from the threats posed by modern farming practices.
Individual member states can decide for themselves how best to achieve these goals in their country.
Individual states can have more specific objectives

4. Monitoring AES success
AES have been running in most EU states for >10 years
Monitoring efforts have focussed largely on terrestrial plant and animal biodiversity
Mixed results, some species benefit, but no consistent pattern.
Problems with AES designs hinder ability to evaluate schemes robustly.
Little or no work on AES impacts on freshwater habitats
So, AES have been running in most EU countries for over 10 years, indeed for much longer than that in some countries, but given the large sums of money being spent there has been relatively little monitoring of whether objectives have been met.
Monitoring efforts have focussed mainly on terrestrial flora and fauna with a wide range of outcomes being reported but generally a moderate improvement of some sort is noted.
Crucially it has been recognised that the way in which AES are implemented and designed often makes it difficult to robustly evaluate their success: they are voluntary schemes, often there is no top-down coordination of uptake at a landscape scale, and many AES have ill-defined objectives in the first place.

5. Do agri-environment schemes protect and improve freshwater ecosystems?
Tir Cynnal (moderate activity)
Tir Gofal (high activity)

6. Scheme Participation
Moderate activity
High activity

7. Stream site selection Using GIS, randomly selected n=1118
spatially independent, 2nd and 3rd order stream catchments.
Catchment-scale criteria: % cover threshold
 >40% Treatment Scheme
<20% Forestry
<10% Suburban/Urban
<10% Other schemes + Mixed AES

8. Tir Cynnal (moderate activity) Tir Gofal (high activity) Not in Scheme
Invertebrates
Macrophytes
Habitat
Sediment ● ▼ ■

9. Survey of Farmer Activity Used to populate models with local activity
Telephone survey of :
Crops
Fertilizer
Plant protection products
Livestock
Waste management
Veterinary medicines
Used to populate models with local activity

10. Modelled pollutant loads
Modelled the baseline annual pollutant loads emitted from each of the 80 stream catchments, based on:
Physical catchment characteristics
Farm practice survey
Land cover data
Phosphate
Modelled nitrate, phosphorus, sediment and pesticides loads (kg ha-1, toxic dose units ha-1) and concentrations (mg l-1, active dose units l-1)
For each of the 80 stream sites we modelled the annual diffuse losses of key pollutants:
Nitrate
Phosphorus
Sediment
Pesticides
The model uses available national-scale landscape, climate, census and agricultural census datasets to infer all necessary input data.
The models are well-established and validated e.g. our modelled phosphorus conc. values correlated well with available measured data for Welsh watercourses.

11. Modelled pollutant loads
Verification of Modelled Concentrations
Nitrate
Suspended Sediment

12. Construction of National Pollutant Budgets
Modelled Nitrate
Modelled Phosphorus
Integration of ADAS Models of Agricultural and Non-Agricultural Pollutant Loads