Thrill of the Hill is back! Season 3 #2 – Spawning Success. In this episode we hear from Ayrshire River Trust’s Stuart Brabbs and Struan Candlish about the quality of Scotland’s water environment, factors impacting this quality, the successes of the Nature Restoration Fund and the need for a holistic approach to managing riparian habitats. 

Farming & Water Scotland is a joint initiative between SAC Consulting and SEPA, focusing on the provision of practical advice around the protection of the water environment that can be implemented at farm level. Resources vary from advice and information on how to manage water around the steading to field drainage, natural flood management and improving your farm for biodiversity. In this episode, Stuart references improvements in slurry storage and application and its impact on the farmed water environment, for more information on this, check out the Managing Slurry for Folks in a Hurry series here https://www.farmingandwaterscotland.org/livestock-arable/livestock-slurry-based-systems/managing-slurry-for-folks-in-a-hurry-webinar-series/ and for a summary of the most recent changes to regulations on slurry storage and handling here https://www.farmingandwaterscotland.org/know-the-rules/.

Water margins play a hugely important role in the farmed environment, a blue string tying together different farmland habitats and is massively important in terms of natural capital – think flood management, biodiversity value and even capacity for renewable energy production. In our autumn 2020 series, Water Margin Management in a Changing Climate, FAS explored water margins management for ecological and conservation benefit as well as provided practical advice of ditching and draining, all of which can be found here https://www.fas.scot/environment/water-management/water-margins-2/.