Conclusions
Our results herein clearly indicate that the initiation of different buffer strip vegetation treatments can disturb soils and negate sediment trapping efficacy initially. This should be borne in mind, especially when communicating early impacts to land managers. Thereafter, the grass treatment matured faster than the willow and deciduous woodland treatments for reducing sediment loss. Regardless of this timeline, all three vegetation treatments delivered some capacity for reducing sediment loss and our results provide new evidence for farmers, catchment managers and policy teams. Clearly, our results in this paper only report reductions in sediment loss delivered by the different buffer strip treatments, but positive impacts on additional priority pollutants for the agricultural sector, including nutrients and pesticides are likely.