Riparian Buffer Strip Tool and Methodology for project assessments

Natural England is developing the Conservation Measures Standard to underpin the delivery of the NRF. Part of this work requires a methodology and tool for quantify the nutrient reductions generated through implementing riparian buffer strips (RBS) in Nutrient Neutrality (NN) catchments to improve water quality.

This tool will facilitate mitigation scheme suppliers to design and deliver robust RBS to generate nutrient reductions capable of offsetting nutrient inputs from development in NN catchments. This tool and its associated guidance will be part of a wider project Natural England has begun to produce standardised tools, guidance and assessment criteria to ensure conservation measure projects (mitigation schemes) are effective at achieving the intended environmental outcome.

This project, the Conservation Measures Standard (CMS), will develop Solution Toolkits for each of the measure relied upon to deliver nutrient mitigation, prioritising the most effective and commonly used measures to allow scheme suppliers to design and implement high-quality schemes in accordance with the set standard. This request for work will build on existing work on RBS to generate nutrient mitigation by commissioning a comprehensive methodology and tool to accurately quantify the nutrient reduction achieved at a project scale through the implementation of RBS.

The commission forms two parts, the first request is to design a robust methodology to calculate the N and P reduction achieved in kg/year by implementing a RBS project in a NN catchment. This will need to be developed in collaboration with NE and should incorporate the existing evidence base commissioned by NE.

The second part of this commission is to use GIS and data science/analytics to develop a tool to enable site specific calculations for N and P reductions achieved by a RBS project. This must be based on the above methodology and should incorporate a level of precaution to account for any uncertainty. The work should align with other publications and tools generated by NE to quantify the nutrient inputs resulting from new development (Nutrient Neutrality calculators) and to quantify the nutrient reductions achieved by Nature-based Solutions/mitigation measures (Cover Crop calculators).