Recognising that hydrological, pedological and biological processes are interlinked and interdependent (e.g. recharge – groundwater – baseflow – river ecology) our research programme continues to use catchment–based studies to improve our understanding of environmental processes. Such work is driven by national and European legislation such as the Water and Soil Framework Directives and ranges from the reach to catchment scale, frequently being used to inform the use of numerical models at local, regional and national scales. Recent activities in this area include:

• The restructuring of the LOCAR experimental network.  Following the end of NERC’s thematic programme of Lowland Catchment Research (LOCAR), BGS and CEH have joint responsibility for rationalising and maintaining the network of research sites in the three research catchments.

• An ongoing study is looking in detail at the physical and chemical processes involved in the movement of groundwater to streams whilst increasing our understanding of the geological controls on these processes. This study has significantly added to what was already one of the most densely instrumented LOCAR research sites in the Lambourn catchment.
• The controls on groundwater flooding at the catchment scale is the focus of separate projects in Brighton, Oxford and Pilmuir in order to develop appropriate flood risk management measures.

Contact John Bloomfield for further information

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