Using high resolution water quality monitoring across three English catchments to capture a storm event during a transition from dry to wet conditions

The Demonstration Test Catchment (DTC) project is a UK government funded initiative to test the effectiveness of on-farm mitigation measures designed to reduce agricultural pollution without compromising farm productivity. Three distinct catchments in England have been chosen to test mitigation measures on working farms in small tributary catchments equipped with continuous water quality monitoring stations. The River Avon in the south is a chalk and sandstone catchment with livestock and arable farming, the River Wensum in the east is a lowland chalk catchment with predominantly arable farming and the River Eden in the North has a limestone and sandstone geology with predominantly livestock farming. One of the many strengths of the DTC as a national programme is that it provides the ability to investigate catchment hydrology and biogeochemical response across three different English landscapes. This is a collaborative paper involving members of all three DTC consortia, which aims to compare the responses of each of the catchments to a single storm event from April 2012, which was as a result of one of the first weather fronts to track across the country following a drought period affecting much of the UK, producing heavy rainfall in all three catchments. This was an unusual meteorological period, with subsequent hydrological implications when a rapid shift from drought to flood risk occurred across parts of the country. The effects of the weather front on discharge and water chemistry parameters, including N (NO3- and NH4), P (Total P (TP) and Total Reactive P (TRP)), dissolved oxygen (DO), chlorophyll and turbidity, measured at a half-hourly time step, are examined. When considered in the context of one hydrological year, flow and concentration duration curves reveal that the weather fronts resulted in extreme flow, nitrate and TP concentrations in all three catchments but with distinct differences in hydrograph and nutrient response. Hysteresis loops constructed from high resolution data are used to highlight an array of pollutant sources and delivery pathways. Phosphorus delivery to the stream was source-limited in the River Wensum but transport-limited in the Avon and Eden rivers. Load calculations show that nitrogen losses were an order of magnitude higher per hectare in the Wensum catchment than in the Avon catchment. These data demonstrate the consequences during such times of transition and the importance of understanding the relationship between water quality and meteorological conditions, with each catchment highlighting pressures from different pollutants.