Identification

Title

Various water quality parameters covering a pre and post-planting regime (Halladale study 1995-2010)

Alternative title(s)

Abstract

Our study was driven by concerns that afforesting the headwaters of the Upper Halladale River in North Scotland would affect water quality and the local salmon fishery. The main issue was the threat of increased surface water acidification due to pollutant scavenging by the growing conifer forest but there were also worries about the impact of the soil disturbance and hydrological changes accompanying ploughing and drainage operations and nutrient losses following planned fertiliser applications. The headwaters support important spawning and nursery areas for salmon and were therefore considered to be especially vulnerable to afforestation. Following an initial one-year study to evaluate the potential impacts, the scheme was agreed and planting proceeded in 1996. This presented an ideal opportunity to continue the monitoring to look at the short, medium and long-term effects of afforestation and forest growth on the chemistry and biology of a sensitive freshwater system. Water samples are regularly taken from six sites and analysed for a wide range of water quality parameters. The results of our study will also assess the efficacy of forest management practices in protecting the freshwater environment. See papers below for more details: Forestry Commission (1994). Final report on research at Halladale, February 1993 to April 1994. Forest Research, Farnham, Surrey, UK. Forestry Commission (1997). The sustainability of afforestation development within Highland catchments supporting important salmonids fisheries – the Upper Halladale Rive. Research report for the period January to December 1997. Forestry Commission (1999). The Sustainability of Afforestation Development within Highland Catchments Supporting Important Salmonid Fisheries - the Upper Halladale River. Research Report for the Period January - December 1999. T.R. Nisbet, J. Pitman & S. Broadmeadow (2007) ANC Response Function for Salmonids: An Assessment of the Critical Limit for Protecting Surface Waters from Acidification in Scotland. Forest Research, Farnham, Surrey, UK. Shah, N.W. and Nisbet, T.R. (2016) The short and long-term effects of peatland conifer afforestation on water quality in a sensitive freshwater system. Manuscript in preparation. Attribution statement: If you use this data you must cite: Shah, N.W. and Nisbet, T.R. (2016) The short and long-term effects of peatland conifer afforestation on water quality in a sensitive freshwater system. Manuscript in preparation.

Resource type

dataset

Resource locator

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/data.defra.gov.uk/Forestry/FC_OpenData/FR/Halladale_to2010.xlsx

protocol: http

name:

description:

Unique resource identifier

code

275f77e4-75df-41a3-a042-4fdb158a8fe0

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

environment

Keywords

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-01-13

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

-3.875

East bounding longitude

-3.86

North bounding latitude

58.355

South bounding latitude

58.345

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

1995-11-03

End position

2010-11-01

Dataset reference date

date type

creation

effective date

2016-01-11

date type

publication

effective date

2016-03-17

Frequency of update

biannually

Quality and validity

Lineage

Data creation involved taking water quality samples from the Upper Halladale River Catchment and analysing the samples in the Alice Holt chemical laboratory; the data has been standardised to a monthly time scale. The results consist of approximately one year of baseline data prior to afforestation (January 1995 to January 1996) and a further 14.5 years after afforestation (to December 2010). The data has been checked for erroneous results but outliers have not been removed unless the laboratory has reported a problem or if the data is wildly out of range. The net result is that very few sample points have been removed from the long-term data set.

Conformity

Data format

name of format

Open format | MS Excel (XLSX)

version of format

2010

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Contains Forestry Commission information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Forest Research must be acknowledged as the source of the data in any subsequent papers/products

Constraint set

Use constraints

Forest Research must be acknowledged as the source of the data in any subsequent papers/products

Constraint set

Limitations on public access

Forest Research must be acknowledged as the source of the data in any subsequent papers/products

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

organisation name

Forestry Commission

email address

mapping.geodata@forestry.gov.uk

web address

http://www.forestry.gov.uk/

description: Forestry Commission England Website

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

organisation name

Forestry Commission

email address

mapping.geodata@forestry.gov.uk

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2024-05-07

Metadata language

eng