10117754Environmental Monitoring of Welsh Agricultural Catchments (EMWAC)ClosedCollaborative R&DInnovate UKAdverse weather conditions, as a result of climate change, are disrupting seasonal changes and farming productivity. A knock-on impact is that diffuse nutrient pollution from agriculture is posing an increasingly significant and costly threat to watercourses as intensification of farming practices and the pressure of production can lead to contaminants entering surrounding water bodies. These contaminants can in turn be heightened by increased rainfall and climatic changes. The total estimated cost to remove phosphorus water pollution in line with 2027 targets is ~£3670M, assuming current farming practices \[Defra 2022\]. As such, innovation is needed to improve insights and support for farmers, and the broader stakeholder ecosystem, to remain resilient to the effects of climate change and maintain food and energy security while minimising the environmental impact. Currently, there are few cost-effective, scalable tools available to farmers and water companies to reliably monitor and quantify water quality. This project will develop and ground-truth Agreed Earth's remote sensing system for agricultural nutrient loading, develop a low-cost water quality biosensor and develop a dashboard/mobile application to integrate and visualise data from both technologies. These innovations offer advantages over traditional water quality monitoring methods such as on-market sensors and lab-based analyses, which are expensive and/or time-consuming. Agreed's technology provides a non-invasive, geolocation method for pinpointing diffuse pollution sources at both catchment and field levels. The sensor development at Aberystwyth will enhance water quality monitoring accuracy at a lower cost compared to existing sensors. Partners will collaborate to develop a commercial product and an end user-facing dashboard that integrates both monitoring technologies. The project will carry out extensive knowledge exchange and workshops to ensure the technologies developed through the project meet customer and end-user needs and align with their existing practices. The project will also produce foundational capabilities and technologies that will allow future scaling and a deeper understanding of biological and chemical impacts related to farming practices and mitigation strategies. Gathered data will enable easy and rapid knowledge of potential water pollutant hotspots in and around farm activity areas. This will offer advice to farmers and other stakeholders based on the environmental parameters to enable the mitigation of potential agricultural pollutant sources and drive best farming practices.