Assessing impacts on water quality in future British rivers due to environmental changes

The percentage of surface waterbodies achieving 'good' ecological status in the UK has stagnated at 35% over the past decade. Climate and landuse changes have put further stresses on water quality. Robust assessment of the impacts of the changes on both water quantity and water quality is essential to their sustainable management.

Research methodology The project contains four major steps.

1. The relevant water quality data will be collated from the four Demonstration Test Catchments catchments across England. The water quality data along with other input data will be processed for the SWAT+ model (Soil and Water Assessment Tool Plus).

2. The SWAT+ model will be set up at both a daily and sub-daily time step. They will be calibrated and validated using the historical data.

3. The UKCP18 12 km regional projections and 2.2 km local projections will be bias corrected and used as forcing inputs for the daily and sub-daily SWAT+ models. To analyse future low-flow environments and the pattern/ sequence of summer hydrological events and how they can lead to increased eutrophication risk, the new Met Office Advanced Meteorology Explorer will also be used to assess impacts of extreme low/high-flow conditions on water quality.

4. The Landuse scenarios and agricultural management practices will be used to force the SWAT+ models to quantify their impacts of on water quality. Training

You will gain (1) knowledge in climate change, hydrological and nutrients modelling (2) computer programming, model optimisation algorithms, data processing, and statistical analysis, (3) industry experience through working with the project partner - Anglian Water, (4) training opportunities provided by ARIES.