Did you know that the water cycle is essential for both farmers and the environment? It supports life on this planet for crop growth and healthy soils for farmers to feed us. It also supports water for river flows and ecosystems. But climate change, resulting in unpredictable weather, impacts the water cycle which makes it harder for farms to function well.
If the water cycle stops working properly, underground layers of rock that store water (aquifers) can’t refill and are hindered. This leads to dry, drought-like conditions, making it harder for farmers to grow crops and feed livestock. As a result, food prices go up, and the environment suffers.
Water also helps balance the climate and provides the fresh water we need to survive. Maintaining healthy water systems is crucial for keeping both our food supply and ecosystems strong for the future.
What Is The Water Cycle?
This is how water moves from the sky to the ground and back. This is how it forms:
- Water from oceans, rivers, and land turns into vapour and rises.
- This vapour forms clouds.
- It falls back to Earth as rain or snow.
Watch our video below to learn more.
When the water cycle runs naturally, farms and the environment thrive. But climate change is making the weather more unpredictable, causing uneven rainfall in the UK. At the same time, poor farming practices are making it harder for soil to hold water and let it soak in.
How Affinity Water Supports Farmers
At Affinity Water, we are supporting and advising farmers. Here are some of the ways we support farmers to improve water quality and the water cycle function:
- Promoting the importance of healthy and living soils: Across our catchments, we provide advice around improving soil health. Keeping roots in the soil all year round helps create soil ecosystems for living organisms, which help plants access nutrients to grow and water to move through soils.
- Provide funding to farmers: We fund innovative practices such as cover and companion crops. This extra vegetation reduces runoff, soil erosion, holds water, and allows it to infiltrate better down to aquifers. When this vegetation breaks down in the soil, it adds “green manure,” feeding the soil and building organic matter. Only a 1% increase in organic matter could help the soil hold an extra 70,000 litres of water per hectare.
Note: A hectare is a unit of area measurement in the metric system, commonly used in agriculture. It equals 10,000 square metres (or a square with sides of 100 metres) and is equivalent to 2.47 acres in the imperial system. It’s often used to describe large plots of land, such as farmland or forest areas.
More unpredictable rainfall means that farming machinery can sometimes damage soil. This causes it to become compacted, which makes it harder for water to soak into the ground. Through our Soil Innovation Fund, farmers can apply for grant funding contributions to purchase low-disturbance machinery and any other projects which could help soils.
Affinity Water have been the proud sponsors of the UK's biggest regenerative farming festival in Hitchin for the last 7 years. We host the popular rainfall simulator demonstration to show how different farming practices and soils react to heavy rainfall. This demonstrates how regenerative soils hold water more effectively.
We believe improving soil health is key to ensuring the water cycle works for public water supplies, food production, and the environment. By working with farmers, we can ensure clean and healthy water and food, and valuable ecosystems such as chalk streams are protected for future generations.