Projects

A number of projects are taking place in the Tarland catchment, actively aiming to involve stakeholders and local people in planning and executing research and implementing good catchment management practices. These initiatives are as shown in Table 1, below.

Project	Aims	Stakeholder groups
The AQUARIUS project	To understand opportunities and constraints for NFM	Farmers and local authority
3 Dee vision	Implementing best practice and raising awareness	Farmers, land owners/estates, regulators, community
Natural Flood Management initiatives (including Scottish Government Work 2011-2016).	To research and facilitate the implementation of NFM measures	Farmers, local to national bodies, land owners/estates, regulators, local council, forestry commission, government
Good septic tank guide	To promote good maintenance practice for tanks	Local residents
River Dee Catchment Management Planning Group	To promote management for ecological goals of WFD and protection of designated species and habitat	Farmers, local to national bodies, land owners/estates, regulators, local council, forestry commission
Diffuse pollution priority catchment	To raise awareness of a system of General Binding Rules for agriculture and ensure their compliance.	Science, policy, farmers and landowners/estates, forestry
REFRESH	EU FP7 project aiming to investigate the ecological and socio-economic consequences of climate and land use change on catchment functioning.	Science and policy

These projects have covered a diverse range of topics and a variety of people,  including school children learning about the life cycle of the Salmon and septic tank owners improving their maintenance regimes.   Farmers, and local land owners have helped to improve riparian areas by planting buffer strips and creating wetlands. Encouragingly, there are also locally-based projects which have been successful in gaining interest and commitment from higher level stakeholder groups including national representation of farming bodies (NFUS), Forestry Commission, Scottish Government and Regulatory bodies (SEPA and SNH).

Category: Projects