FWR Panel discussion: The impact of agriculture on water
The next FWR event will bring together speakers to discuss the critical relationship between agriculture and water resources. Through a series of short, lightning presentations the expert speakers will highlight the latest insights on the impact of agriculture on water resources, experience of managing this in practice, and potential future challenges for this relationship.
Presentations include:
- Living with high and low flows – risks and opportunities for UK irrigated agriculture
- Using Catchment & Nature Based Solutions to benefit farming, water and the environment
- The role of monitoring in support of agricultural water management
- Water holding to alleviate flooding
The presentations will be followed by a facilitated panel discussion, giving attendees an opportunity to pose their own questions.
This event has been organised by the FWR’s Water Resources and Quality Technical Panel. It is free and open to all.
Our speakers
Danny Coffey
Danny Coffey is the Catchment Manager at Affinity Water and he manages a team of advisors who work collaboratively with farmers and landowners across priority catchments to support regenerative farming practices and nature-based solutions. Danny has 10 years’ experience in catchment management and a strong interest in using field trials and robust data to shape catchment schemes which can drive beneficial change for the environment, water, soil health and crop productivity.
ffinlo Costain
ffinlo is the Editor-in-Chief of 8point9.com and has worked in farming, land and food business policy for over 20 years. As Chief Executive of Farmwel (2016-2022) he gave evidence to UK parliamentary committees and advised ministers and the Committee on Climate Change on the role of agricultural climate gases. ffinlo founded the Food & Global Security Network in 2020 and published Soil Health: A security threat profile, prior to COP26. ffinlo has presented at the European Parliament and advised ministers and senior leadership teams in many European countries. His TEDx Talk, ‘We can’t solve the climate crisis without cows’, has proved highly popular with regenerative farmers and innovators.
Professor Jerry Knox
Jerry is Professor of Agricultural Water Management based within the Cranfield Water Science Institute at Cranfield University. He has 33 years international experience in the science, engineering, and management of water resources for agriculture, including assessing the relationships between water resources, drought, agricultural productivity and the environment, and the sustainability of agricultural production in the context of climate impacts and food security. His research interests are in biophysical and water resource modelling, irrigation agronomy, soil and irrigation management, abiotic (drought) impacts on crop productivity and climate change impacts and adaptation responses in agriculture.
Professor Mark Mulligan
Mark Mulligan is Professor of Physical and Environmental Geography at King’s College London and also Honorary Fellow of UN Environment – World Conservation Monitoring Centre. He works with a large team of PhD students on a variety of topics in the areas of environmental spatial policy support, ecosystem service modelling and understanding human impacts on the environment and their consequences for society. This research is at scales from local to global and with a particular emphasis on tropical forests, mountains and drylands. He is developer of a range of open datasets at geodata.policysupport.org and free web-based policy support systems at www.policysupport.org. These include hydroclimatic and land cover datasets and the WaterWorld hydrological and Co$ting Nature ecosystem services modelling tools. His research involves fieldwork around the world and he is also developer of a range of open source instruments for environmental monitoring through the FreeStation and FreeSensor projects.
Header image credit: © ChrisChips | Adobe Stock
