Hampshire Avon DTC Deposited Fine-grained Sediment Monitoring Dataset 2010-2013

In conjunction with the hydrological and water quality monitoring, a monitoring regime was designed to detect how freshwater ecology responds to changes in agricultural diffuse pollutants. The data gathered have been used to confirm the WFD ecological status of the study sub-catchments, to explore spatial and temporal variability in biological quality elements, and to identify those pollutants that are most likely to be causing failure to achieve Good ecological status. This background data provides an evidence base to both inform, and assess the impact of, mitigation measures. Invertebrates, diatoms and macrophytes were monitored in each subcatchment and WFD tools have been used to establish the status of these Biological Quality Elements (BQE). The biological monitoring sites are closely matched to the hydrological and water quality monitoring stations, which will allow observed change in the BQEs to be linked to reductions in diffuse pollution and on-farm diffuse pollution mitigation measures. We also monitored variation in the quantity of deposited fine-grained sediment in the stream bed over the same period. The data being made available here are reach-averaged masses of fine-grained sediment in the stream bed at each of the 11 Avon & Tamar DTC sites as measured using the disturbance technique (Duerdoth et al., 2015; see Hampshire Avon DTC Ecological Monitoring metadata).

2016-05-09

Citation of this data should be as follows:

Hants Avon DTC consortium (2016): Hampshire Avon DTC Deposited Fine-grained Sediment Monitoring Dataset 2010-2013. Version:1. [dataset] Freshwater Biological Association [publisher]. doi:10.17865/dtcavon193