Modelling the Impacts of the Water Framework Directive

Project Status: Completed
Type of Project: Research Project
Principal Investigator: Prof Ian Bateman, University of East Anglia (Email)
Website

Policy and Practice Note

Publications, Data and Other Outputs

Objectives

This project combines front line natural science with socio-economic research to assess the costs and benefits to the rural community of changing farming and community practices to produce a healthy and sustainable river environment of good amenity value. A key focus of the analysis is to examine how (within a context of reforms of the Common Agricultural Policy and complicating issues such as climate variability and non agricultural sources of pollution) the EU Water Framework Directive is likely to affect agricultural activities concerning fertilisers, pesticides and faecal matter and so impact upon incomes within already fragile farming communities. We also assess the potential water amenity and recreational benefits arising from such policies and compare this to their likely cost.

The work combines physical environment models with economic analyses and surveys of farmer attitudes and behaviour to provide a highly interdisciplinary study of this multifaceted issue. The study also makes use of over £8 million of prior research and uses a case study of the Humber catchment which covers a fifth of the area of England from the midlands to north Yorkshire and across to the east coast.