b'Improving extension services surrounding diffuse waterpollution from agriculture: new insights from EnglandChivers C-A1,2, Collins AL2, Winter M1 and Lobley M1 1University of Exeter, Centre for Rural Policy Research, Exeter, England2Sustainable Agriculture Sciences, Rothamsted Research, North Wyke Okehampton,Devon EX20 2SB, EnglandAgricultural contributions to diffuse water pollution remain significant in many rural areas and are central to ongoing debates surrounding sustainable intensification. Environmental advice is one mechanism for reducing the impact of farming on water quality, alongside targeted regula-tion and incentivisation. But, against this context, the extension system in England has become increasingly fragmented since a withdrawal of state-funded advice during the 1990s, leading to pluralistic provisioning, with many organisations operating under slightly different remits.Whether farmers find current environmental advice credible, relevant, and legitimate (CRELE) is crucial as they may be unlikely to uptake environmental measures where these attributes are unmet. An ongoing doctoral research project is therefore reviewing the extension landscape in England and exploring how environmental advice could be improved to meet farmers CRELE attributes. This interdisciplinary research utilises a mixed methods approach including telephoneinterviews, focus groups, an online questionnaire survey and sediment source fingerprinting(SF) as an example of empirical evidence on the contribution of farming to water qualityproblems which could be provided to farmers. Despite the growing application of SF in academic studies, farmer engagement with this type of empirical evidence has not been explored in depth; therefore, how scientists can disseminate such research to farmers and advisors in anengaging, applicable way is being explored, with preliminary findings indicating that farmers find such scientific evidence useful. This research also explored how initiatives such as Catchment Sensitive Farming (England) could provide more targeted advice to reduce environmentalexternalities arising from farming. Despite a paradigm shift towards co-production andknowledge exchange, current advice provisioning in England often appears to upholda traditional top-down approach; possible implications of this will also be discussed briefly.This research is relevant within an Irish context due to its wider applicability to agriculturalextension services including those delivered by Teagasc.43'