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Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK
PURPOSE: Intensive livestock grazing has been associated with an increased risk of soil erosion and concomitant negative impacts on the ecological status of watercourses. Whilst various mitigation options are promoted for reducing livestock impacts, there is a paucity of data on the relationship bet...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550719/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34720744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-02909-y |
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author | Pulley, S. Cardenas, L. M. Grau, P. Mullan, S. Rivero, M. J. Collins, A. L. |
author_facet | Pulley, S. Cardenas, L. M. Grau, P. Mullan, S. Rivero, M. J. Collins, A. L. |
author_sort | Pulley, S. |
collection | PubMed |
description | PURPOSE: Intensive livestock grazing has been associated with an increased risk of soil erosion and concomitant negative impacts on the ecological status of watercourses. Whilst various mitigation options are promoted for reducing livestock impacts, there is a paucity of data on the relationship between stocking rates and quantified sediment losses. This evidence gap means there is uncertainty regarding the cost–benefit of policy preferred best management. METHODS: Sediment yields from 15 hydrologically isolated field scale catchments on a heavily instrumented ruminant livestock farm in the south west UK were investigated over ~ 26 months spread across 6 years. Sediment yields were compared to cattle and sheep stocking rates on long-term, winter (November–April), and monthly timescales. The impacts of livestock on soil vegetation cover and bulk density were also examined. Cattle were tracked using GPS collars to determine how grazing related to soil damage. RESULTS: No observable impact of livestock stocking rates of 0.15–1.00 UK livestock units (LU) ha(−1) for sheep, and 0–0.77 LU ha(−1) for cattle on sediment yields was observed at any of the three timescales. Cattle preferentially spent time close to specific fences where soils were visually damaged. However, there was no indication that livestock have a significant effect on soil bulk density on a field scale. Livestock were housed indoors during winters when most rainfall occurs, and best management practices were used which when combined with low erodibility clayey soils likely limited sediment losses. CONCLUSION: A combination of clayey soils and soil trampling in only a small proportion of the field areas lead to little impact from grazing livestock. Within similar landscapes with best practice livestock grazing management, additional targeted measures to reduce erosion are unlikely to yield a significant cost-benefit. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11368-021-02909-y. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8550719 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Springer Berlin Heidelberg |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-85507192021-10-29 Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK Pulley, S. Cardenas, L. M. Grau, P. Mullan, S. Rivero, M. J. Collins, A. L. J Soils Sediments Sediments, Sec 3 • Hillslope and River Basin Sediment Dynamics • Research Article PURPOSE: Intensive livestock grazing has been associated with an increased risk of soil erosion and concomitant negative impacts on the ecological status of watercourses. Whilst various mitigation options are promoted for reducing livestock impacts, there is a paucity of data on the relationship between stocking rates and quantified sediment losses. This evidence gap means there is uncertainty regarding the cost–benefit of policy preferred best management. METHODS: Sediment yields from 15 hydrologically isolated field scale catchments on a heavily instrumented ruminant livestock farm in the south west UK were investigated over ~ 26 months spread across 6 years. Sediment yields were compared to cattle and sheep stocking rates on long-term, winter (November–April), and monthly timescales. The impacts of livestock on soil vegetation cover and bulk density were also examined. Cattle were tracked using GPS collars to determine how grazing related to soil damage. RESULTS: No observable impact of livestock stocking rates of 0.15–1.00 UK livestock units (LU) ha(−1) for sheep, and 0–0.77 LU ha(−1) for cattle on sediment yields was observed at any of the three timescales. Cattle preferentially spent time close to specific fences where soils were visually damaged. However, there was no indication that livestock have a significant effect on soil bulk density on a field scale. Livestock were housed indoors during winters when most rainfall occurs, and best management practices were used which when combined with low erodibility clayey soils likely limited sediment losses. CONCLUSION: A combination of clayey soils and soil trampling in only a small proportion of the field areas lead to little impact from grazing livestock. Within similar landscapes with best practice livestock grazing management, additional targeted measures to reduce erosion are unlikely to yield a significant cost-benefit. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11368-021-02909-y. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2021-03-13 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8550719/ /pubmed/34720744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-02909-y Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . |
spellingShingle | Sediments, Sec 3 • Hillslope and River Basin Sediment Dynamics • Research Article Pulley, S. Cardenas, L. M. Grau, P. Mullan, S. Rivero, M. J. Collins, A. L. Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title | Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title_full | Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title_fullStr | Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title_full_unstemmed | Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title_short | Does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? Evidence from the North Wyke Farm Platform, UK |
title_sort | does cattle and sheep grazing under best management significantly elevate sediment losses? evidence from the north wyke farm platform, uk |
topic | Sediments, Sec 3 • Hillslope and River Basin Sediment Dynamics • Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8550719/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34720744 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11368-021-02909-y |
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