Catchment Team engage with poultry farmers in Wye Catchment
Groups of poultry farmers operating within the Wye Catchment are being visited by Welsh Water’s Drinking Water Catchment Team to share with them opportunity mapping information.
This information can help farmers operate more efficiently and at the same time reduce unwanted run-off of nutrients into drinking water sources, thereby reducing the amount of treatment needed at our drinking water treatment works.
Hydrological pathway maps are created for each farmer, showing them clearly the route taken by surface water on their land. These maps are created using Lidar surveys.
Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) is an airborne mapping technique, which uses a laser to measure the distance between the aircraft and the ground. Up to 100,000 measurements per second are made of the ground, allowing highly detailed surface and terrain models to be generated at different spatial resolutions.
Daniel Humphreys, who conducts the visits, said: “This information can help the farmer operate more efficiently as the maps provide information about slopes above 12 degrees, the locations of watercourses and indicate no spread zones. Giving the farmer this information also benefits Welsh Water in ensuring the water reaching our drinking water treatment works is as clean as possible.
“Our aim in sharing this information directly with the farmer is to improve awareness and land management. We can then look to see if any mitigations are a potential before any unwanted run-off of nutrients reaches the water.”
LiDAR data is available from the following website https://lle.gov.wales/catalogue/item/LidarCompositeDataset and is processed through a freely available tool SAGA GIS.
Examples of LiDAR mapping in the Wye Valley