Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

Risk-based modelling of diffuse land use impacts from rural landscapes upon salmonid fry abundance

Reaney, S.M.; Lane, S.N.; Heathwaite, A.L.; Dugdale, L.J.

Risk-based modelling of diffuse land use impacts from rural landscapes upon salmonid fry abundance Thumbnail


Authors

S.N. Lane

A.L. Heathwaite

L.J. Dugdale



Abstract

Research has demonstrated that landscape or watershed scale processes can influence instream aquatic ecosystems, in terms of the impacts of delivery of fine sediment, solutes and organic matter. Testing such impacts upon populations of organisms (i.e. at the catchment scale) has not proven straightforward and differences have emerged in the conclusions reached. This is: (1) partly because different studies have focused upon different scales of enquiry; but also (2) because the emphasis upon upstream land cover has rarely addressed the extent to which such land covers are hydrologically connected, and hence able to deliver diffuse pollution, to the drainage network. However, there is a third issue. In order to develop suitable hydrological models, we need to conceptualise the process cascade. To do this, we need to know what matters to the organism being impacted by the hydrological system, such that we can identify which processes need to be modelled. Acquiring such knowledge is not easy, especially for organisms like fish that might occupy very different locations in the river over relatively short periods of time. However, and inevitably, hydrological modellers have started by building up piecemeal the aspects of the problem that we think matter to fish. Herein, we report two developments: (a) for the case of sediment associated diffuse pollution from agriculture, a risk-based modelling framework, SCIMAP, has been developed, which is distinct because it has an explicit focus upon hydrological connectivity; and (b) we use spatially distributed ecological data to infer the processes and the associated process parameters that matter to salmonid fry. We apply the model to spatially distributed salmon and fry data from the River Eden, Cumbria, England. The analysis shows, quite surprisingly, that arable land covers are relatively unimportant as drivers of fry abundance. What matters most is intensive pasture, a land cover that could be associated with a number of stressors on salmonid fry (e.g. pesticides, fine sediment) and which allows us to identify a series of risky field locations, where this land cover is readily connected to the river system by overland flow.

Citation

Reaney, S., Lane, S., Heathwaite, A., & Dugdale, L. (2011). Risk-based modelling of diffuse land use impacts from rural landscapes upon salmonid fry abundance. Ecological Modelling, 222(4), 1016-1029. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.08.022

Journal Article Type Article
Publication Date Feb 1, 2011
Deposit Date Jan 23, 2012
Publicly Available Date Sep 14, 2017
Journal Ecological Modelling
Print ISSN 0304-3800
Electronic ISSN 1872-7026
Publisher Elsevier
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 222
Issue 4
Pages 1016-1029
DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2010.08.022
Keywords Diffuse pollution, Hydrological connectivity, Land cover, Salmonids, Fine sediment, Risk
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1521213

Files






You might also like



Downloadable Citations