Little Stour (UK)
LOCATION + COORDINATES
North East of Kent (UK), Little Stour catchment (part of the Wingham catchment), Part of the East Kent Chalk area (groundwater catchment)
Remediation of soil degradation at 51.183719, 1.185578 decimal coordinates
CATEGORY
Demonstration sites for infiltration restoration through the remediation of soil compaction
SITE DESCRIPTION
Kent County Council (in collaboration with South East Water, South East Rivers Trust and land owners) will remediate compaction through pasture species changes to deeper rooting species providing stronger root systems and protecting infiltration capacity and soil health.
Shelvin Farm and Denne Hill Farm are situtaed in the Little Stour catchment. Slopes with thin soils on chalk are particularly suitable to focus on enhancing recharge to the aquifer. Most of the catchment is productive arable land, with some pasture and woodland, and a small proportion of natural grasslands. These are often particularly well suited to less productive areas including slopes, and so can play a key role in protecting water resources by enhancing infiltration and reducing runoff without significantly increasing demand for water.
Shelvin Farm is a stud farm in the Little Stour catchment, breeding and selling horses. More diverse herbal species were introduced in the pasture and grazing regimes were changed to a rotational grazing pattern with more horses in smaller fields for a shorter period of time.
Denne Hill Farm is a mainly arable farm and a LEAF demonstration farm. It uses Integrated Pest Management approaches and has changed to a minimum till practice. Cover crops were implemented with different rooting depths. The diversified rooting depths are expected to improve the infiltration capacity of the soil, to promote groundwater recharge.
MEASURES
Soil health management
TIMING
2019 - 2022
BUDGET
BUDGET € 141 698
PARTNERS
Kent County Council (KCC)
South East Rivers Trust (SERT)
South East Water (SEW)