£1m UWE Bristol project to tackle agricultural pollution in the River Wye

The University of the West of England has been awarded £1 million to lead a three-year research programme aimed at reducing agricultural pollution in the River Wye, one of the UK’s most historic and ecologically significant river systems.

Appointed by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) and the Welsh Government, the project will work with farmers, land managers and local communities across the Wye catchment to understand the pressures on water quality and identify practical measures to address them.

Researchers plan to develop and test interventions on real working farms through a series of living labs, generating evidence that governments and farmers can act on. Dr Rounaq Nayak, the project’s principal investigator and a senior lecturer in farming systems, said the challenges facing the river are complex and urgent, and that solutions must be built with farmers rather than imposed on them.

He said the team will co-design interventions with the farming community and develop a governance model that could be adopted in similar catchment-wide programmes across the country. UWE Bristol’s multidisciplinary team brings expertise in water quality and monitoring, soil health assessment, nutrient management and participatory research methods, including the design of inclusive governance systems.

Hartpury University and Hartpury College will co-lead the living lab work, with Herefordshire Rural Hub CIC supporting community and farmer engagement. The project also draws on catchment expertise from the Wye Catchment Partnership, the Wye & Usk Foundation, the Rivers Trust and WyeViz, which will contribute to convening, monitoring, trial design and citizen science.

Water Minister Emma Hardy said the Wye is an iconic waterway and that the research will provide vital evidence to understand the catchment’s unique issues and help deliver practical solutions to improve water quality. She said the work comes alongside the government’s reforms of the water system.

Huw Irranca-Davies, Deputy First Minister with responsibility for Climate Change and Rural Affairs in Wales, welcomed the appointment of the UWE Bristol-led consortium. He said the programme will investigate pollution sources and, using a living labs approach with farmers, land managers and local stakeholders, test practical solutions that improve water quality.

He added that the Wye is a Special Area of Conservation and that turning evidence into action to restore the river is a priority. Over the three years, the consortium aims to produce robust, farmer-tested evidence on what works in the Wye and to shape a governance model that can support catchment-wide action elsewhere, with the goal of translating findings into on-the-ground change.