We need to talk about drought Farm business
what can we do about it? Ian Holman and Jerry Knox, of Cranfield University, have been grappling with this question for several years now as part of the Natural Environment Research Council’s Drought and Water Scarcity programme.
EXPERT VIEW
Farmers and irrigators must find more robust solutions to secure water for food production, writes Melvyn Kay
A
gricultural droughts can happen fast – 10 days without rainfall and some
crops can be in trouble. We are now well into 2019 and continuing low rainfall means rivers and ground- water flows are low – with sum- mer irrigation prospects across drier areas now classed as “poor”. Like it or not, droughts are no longer one-off events, they are here to stay. This means we must find more robust solutions to se- cure water for food production. So
Flexible response Many growers have already in- vested in on-farm reservoir stor- age to ‘scalp the floods’ and capture excess winter and occasional high summer river flows to make their businesses less reliant on increas- ingly vulnerable summer flow riv- er flows.
Many growers have benefited from Environment Agency flex- ibility with regard to decisions on summer water trades, tempo- rary abstractions, emergency ab- straction applications, and exten- sions to the winter-filling period for farm reservoirs.
But what more can be done to increase resilience? Professors Holman and Knox highlight three opportunities. First, information technology could enable better use of avail- able surface water flows by inte- grating data from rivers with the flow conditions on abstraction li- cences to provide near real-time alerts to abstractors to take ad- vantage of short-duration flow peaks.
A great new handbook for irrigators
A new 120-page handbook brings all the latest irrigation information together in one place.
Produced by the UK Irri-
gation Association and edited by Melvyn Kay, the handbook is well designed, easy-to-read, and will appeal to experienced irrigators as well as those taking their first steps into irrigation. It includes sections on soil-
plants-water relations, irriga- tion planning and the basic hy- draulics of pipes and pumps, sprinkler and trickle irrigation, thinking about reservoirs, au- diting systems, irrigating pota- toes and soft/top fruit, latest on water legislation.
Secondly, they suggest an ur- gent need to improve the evi- dence-base of the consequences of seasonal groundwater abstraction during drought events for in-riv- er ecology, taking account of post- drought recovery.
Better evidence Without robust and transparent
There is also a section on
Water Abstractor Groups – who and what they are, and why you need to join one to pro- tect your water rights. The Handbook is FREE to UKIA members, but non-mem- bers can purchase a copy at
www.ukia.org.
evidence of abstraction impacts, drought restrictions which are im- posed as a precaution risk com- promising business sustainabil- ity and food security. Thirdly, more integrated ap-
proaches to allocating water re- sources could pay major dividends. Options include sharing abstrac- tion licences and farm reservoirs, working with public water suppli- ers and the development of sec- ondary water markets.
Agriculture is not unique in terms of its exposure to drought risk. It will therefore be essential that all water users work togeth- er, including farmers, to reduce the economic and environmental impacts of future droughts on so- ciety.
Doing this will help us all pre- pare for the next drought with improved resilience. This will be even more important when droughts follow dry winters – such as the one we have just ex- perienced – and groundwater re- charge is low. Melvyn Kay is secretary of the
Low rainfall is making it a challenge to secure enough water for crops
UK Irrigation Association. This article is based on “We need to not be ‘surprised’ by the next drought” by Ian Holman and Jerry Knox, Cranfield University, and pub- lished by the Institute of Water.
JUNE 2019 • ANGLIA FARMER 89
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