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Review of Hydrological Reports For Newborough Warren NNR, Anglesey By CEH Maclean Building Crowmarsh Gifford Wallingford Oxfordshire OX10 8BB 7th August 2006 Compiled by C. Stratford With contributions from A. Hughes (BGS) J. Roberts (CEH) N. Robins (BGS) Executive Summary The Newborough Warren dune slacks have been the focus of much research over the past 60 years. The requirement for this work comes as a result of evidence suggesting that the water table in the slack area has fallen. This is likely to cause a shift in plant associes away from wet dune slack species which in turn could be seen as impacting on the integrity of the dune system SAC. Many of the studies conducted to date have suggested that the high water use of Newborough Forest, which borders the warren, has caused the drop in water table level. The objectives of this report are: Objective 1. To undertake a critical review of previous hydrological studies of Newborough Warren. The processes that determine the water use of the forest (transpiration and interception) were overestimated in a key report (Betson and Scholefield, 2004). However, the transpiration from short dune vegetation was also overestimated, and it was felt that soil moisture deficit, the effect of which would be to further reduce water use, especially by dune vegetation, had not been adequately dealt with. It was concluded that previous work on both the forest and dune vegetation at Newborough had tended to overestimate its impact on lowering the water table. The previous groundwater modelling work (Betson, Connell and Bristow, 2002) had not created a model that operated with realistic values of recharge for forest and dune vegetation. The subsequent model runs that simulated the effects of removing areas of the forest were therefore not felt to be robust and should not form the basis of any management decisions. Objective 2. To advise on the probable hydrological impacts of the for