The following links to external sites and resources may be useful to people wishing to reduce their water use at home:
From the first seedling idea to harvest, a vast number of stories and knowledge grew out of Drought Risk and You (DRY). Supported by the National Allotment Society (NAS), this important and innovative aspect of the research project was led by the University of the West of England, Bristol.
The community of allotment holders and gardeners proved to be an even more plentiful source of information and fertile ideas than expected. Many of their stories of past water scarcity, their anecdotal evidence of effective ways to manage drought and to build resilience into the soil have been curated into DRY Utility, a rich source of stories, film, narratives and guidance notes about different groups’ and communities’ memories of, and responses to, drought.
Prof Lindsey McEwen, Principal Investigator of DRY, says: “Gardeners and allotment holders emerged in DRY as a group of people who were thinking creatively about the issues around water scarcity and drought, and were passionate about the way they grow produce and manage the soil” .
“Those we spoke to also had a strong culture of sharing and exchanging – everything from seeds and produce to knowledge about growing; more experienced growers on an allotment site readily share their advice on what to grow, what not to grow and how, with newcomers” .
“Allotment holders and gardeners can be among the first to notice the signs of local water scarcity in their soil and in growing patterns, with the potential to be early harbingers of possible drought in their communities.”
DRY formed local connections with different allotment groups, workshops were held around the UK and NAS representatives attended events including DRY’s final conference in July 2019. It quickly became a co-productive relationship and a genuine knowledge exchange – a process that DRY has embedded in all its stakeholder relationships.
“It’s one of our success stories,” says Lindsey. “Allotment holders and gardeners are effective ‘messengers’ about water in our communities, they have hyper-local knowledge of the geography of their allotment sites, which plots are most affected and which less so; they share their memories of dry periods and how the ground and crops behaved; they are attuned to water within catchment areas and have a less hierarchical communication structure than many sectors.”
That commitment to co-production extended to collaborating on materials and resources and Lindsey was invited to speak to the NAS national group of mentors who operate regionally, visiting allotment sites to share advice and offer support so they can spread the messages about drought even further.
Lindsey explains: “It’s a really good way of cascading knowledge, to embed in their culture an awareness of drought, combining specialist science and their experiential knowledge. I spoke to the mentors about the role of growers in thinking about drought, how they might consider themselves as messengers, and as the eyes and ears on the ground for monitoring soil moisture and soil health.”
Some mentors like Allan Cavill, NAS mentor and long-term contributor to DRY, promote natural soil management through long-term strategies such as no-dig cultivation, mulching, rainwater harvesting and growing drought-resistant crops. For example, in the Fowey allotment, we heard stories of growing yacon, a root vegetable that tastes like a combination of apple and pear and can be eaten raw or cooked. DRY team members were also given samples to take home. In addition, growers develop an awareness of their personal water use and can spread a spirit of water stewardship into their families and wider networks in horticultural societies, produce shows and neighbourhood communities, for example, thinking about water as a valuable resource and highlighting examples of good practice.
Lindsey says: “In a sense we have worked with some allotment holders’ habit of sharing and swopping seeds and produce in a different context – sharing knowledge about drought.” Read more about DRY, including a blog on working with allotmenteers and gardeners, at www.dryproject.co.uk
Resources on behaviour change relevant to drought:
Searchable information sources for use by different audiences:
“I had to have the five-gallon container in the pushchair and stagger along the road to fill the blessed thing up and then heave it into the pushchair and then push that back with [18 month old] Becky beside me.”
Hear what it was like to live through the 1976 drought from the people who were there, take in the dramatic experiences of firefighters battling wildfires in the UK and watch videos that break down the misconceptions about water shortage and drought in the UK, featuring people on the frontline of its impact today.
Communications experts on the About Drought programme have sourced and produced a series of informative and evocative videos and podcasts which bring the research to life for all ages and audiences.
Woodland modelling undertaken by Dr Pam Berry and colleagues at the University of Oxford has explored in the impact of climate change on the distribution of key woodland species in Great Britain. The resultant datasets map changes in the drought vulnerability for 12 tree species and for two periods, the 2030s and the 2080s. Six categories of potential natural vegetation are also mapped for (i) the present, (ii) the 2030s and (iii) the 2080s. The modelling shows potential changes in leaf area, net primary productivity and net ecosystem productivity. A spatial explorer interface is in development, which allows users to explore these maps interactively, including zooming into their particular location, and allows the user to swipe between two periods for a given location. If you would like to be included as a beta tester for the explorer, please email nevil.quinn@uwe.ac.uk.
Harper Adams University has undertaken an extensive review of the impact of drought on crops grown in the UK and their response to different climate futures. This also includes a consolidation of insights for protected and horticultural crops. This report is available in draft and more focussed crop factsheets are in production.
Irrigation is an essential component of crop production to meet retailer demands for premium quality when rainfall is insufficient. Under drought conditions, irrigation can be constrained by water resources availability, with consequent impacts on yield, quality and revenue. Whilst most agriculture in Europe is rainfed, greater dependence on supplemental irrigation could become more important in humid environments due to a changing climate with greater rainfall uncertainty and higher frequency of droughts.
This interactive StoryMap explores the total financial benefit of outdoor irrigated production in England and Wales assuming no constraints in resource availability and optimal irrigation practices. The analysis suggests that the total net benefits of irrigation in a dry year are around £665 million. Map outputs highlight significant regional differences in water productivity reflecting the composition of land use and the importance of crop mix in determining economic value. A sensitivity analysis to changes in agroclimate, market conditions (crop prices) and water supply (costs) illustrates how the benefits might change under contrasting scenario. The study highlights the importance of supplemental irrigation, even in a humid climate, and the risks that future droughts and/or constraints in water resource availability might have on agricultural systems, livelihoods and the rural economy.The StoryMap is based on a paper, “Modelling and mapping the economic value of supplemental irrigation in a humid climate“.
As part of the Historic Droughts project, researchers at Cranfield University developed an inventory of qualitative drought data related to UK agriculture based on an extensive review from two weekly farming magazines in the UK, Farmer’s Weekly and Farmers Guardian for the period 1975-2018. The resultant inventory contains over 2500 records with information on the start and end dates of the event and their location to characterise the temporal and spatial extents of the cited event, together with the text describing the driver, impact or response in relation to that event. The inventory is available to download as a csv file from the UK Data Service.
This dataset is also currently being translated in to a drought impacts explorer, which allows the user to view these records spatially and to search and save according to various criteria. If you would like to be involved in beta testing of the explorer please contact nevil.quinn@uwe.ac.uk. An early draft of the explorer is available online.
Recent droughts have highlighted the pressures on water allocations and the reliability of abstractions for irrigation. Farm business models need to align cropping programmes to water availability – how resilient is yours to future water shocks?
D-Risk is an intuitive and free online webtool to help farming enterprises rapidly understand their business and drought abstraction risks and thereby support robust decisions regarding future investment in irrigation infrastructure, including equipment and storage reservoirs. D-Risk uses readily accessible data on your local soils, agroclimate, crop areas, irrigation plans, licences and reservoirs to assess the risk of having:
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