Project Groundwater joins with University of Lincoln to help protect ‘the breadbasket of England’.
With an eighth of the UK’s food being grown or processed in greater Lincolnshire, the county could easily be described as the nation’s food capital. And the importance of Lincolnshire’s farmland to our food security cannot be understated.
In the south of the county, the fertile farmland of the Lincolnshire Fens is under threat from salinisation of the soil and water supply.
For agricultural production, salts provide essential nutrients for growing. But too much salt can be toxic and degrade the soil quality and lead to reductions in growth rate, smaller crop yields, and even crop failure.
Knowledge of the groundwater systems in the Fenlands is very limited, and understanding them is key to helping to protect the land in this area from excess salt – or salinisation.
Working with the University of Lincoln, Lincolnshire County Council’s Project Groundwater team will collect data on the present salt levels in the soil in the Fens, and use modelling software to understand how salt water might infiltrate the soil and impact food production in the future.
Through this work, they will also be able to evidence the economic consequences that excessive salt levels will have on our fertile farmland.
Brett Rycroft-Jones, one of the programme co-ordinators for Project Groundwater, said:
“Just as too much salt in your diet is bad for you, too much salt in the soil is bad for crops.
“With this land being so important to the economy of the area, as well as national food security, we need to better understand exactly how big a threat we are facing, and how we might avoid it.”
Vicky Jones, also a programme co-ordinator for the project, added:
“In the Lincolnshire Fens, the groundwater in the aquifer has historically been at a steady level, which kept the nearby sea water at bay. However, with climate change, the groundwater is drying up and the salt water is encroaching into the gaps left behind, getting into the soil, and affecting the food supply.
“This investigation is hopefully the start of a wider understanding of the effects of salinisation on crops in the Fens, and the economic impact that will have for all of us as consumers.”
This research is being conducted under the supervision of Dr Daniel Magnone and Dr Iain Gould from the University of Lincoln. Dr Magnone has a background in conducting research into agricultural productivity, water sustainability and carbon and nutrient cycling. Whilst Dr Gould has a research background concerning resilience in agricultural soils.
The investigation is part of Project Groundwater, a new government-funded initiative to look at flooding and drainage issues across greater Lincolnshire.
Project Groundwater is funded by Defra as part of the £200m Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.
Find out more at engageenvironmentagency.uk.engagementhq.com/lin011-groundwater