River and floodplain management

A National Flood Resilience Strategy for Scotland has been published by the Scottish Government. The strategy sets out a vision for a flood resilient Scotland through to 2045 and beyond. It is structured around the themes of People, Places and Processes. There are four guiding principles laid out in the Strategy that will help embed flood resilience into climate adaptation and place-making and engage as many contributors as possible to deliver as broad a range of actions as possible.

The 2024 British Hydrological Society National Symposium will be held at the University of Oxford on the 23rd and 24th September. This major two-day event will showcase research across the hydrological community and include presentations, workshops, discussions, field visit and conference dinner. The field visit this year includes a walk around the site of the proposed Oxford Alleviation Scheme where you will have an opportunity to understand the flood mechanisms within Oxford and hear about the plans for the scheme.  
 

The Scottish Government is seeking views on Scotland's first Flood Resilience Strategy. The strategy will focus what needs to be done to make communities more flood resilient over the coming decades. The consultation paper seeks views on the proposed principles that will guide the Flood Resilience Strategy under the three key themes of people, places, and processes. The Flood Resilience Strategy public consultation will remain open until 13 August 2024.

Sniffer hosted Scotland's Flood Resilience Conference at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh on 8 - 9 February 2024. This was a hybrid event and almost 700 people attended across the two days. Sessions at the event included community resilience, coastal change and funding for multiple drivers. Presentations and videos from the event are now available on the Sniffer website. 

The Engineering with Nature initiative (led by US Army Corps of Engineers) has now published "Engineering with Nature: An Atlas, volume 3". The atlas contains lots of global case studies that are using NbS inspired approaches. 58 projects (including several cases from the UK) are highlighted in this latest version which is available to download via the link below. 

We are reaching out to you with an exciting opportunity to contribute to research on River woodland evidence gaps. This survey should take approximately 20 minutes to complete (ideally on a laptop or desktop).
 

The Tweed Forum have published a new guide to riverside tree planting. The guide called "Riparian woodland creation – a guide for practitioners" is available via the link at the bottom of this page. The Practitioners’ Guide to Riparian Woodland Creation is aimed at farmers, landowners, land managers, conservation bodies and other organisations to assist and encourage tree planting at the scale required to make a significant difference. The guide was commissioned and funded by the Fishmongers’ Company’s Fisheries Charitable Trust.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering with Nature initiative has released a new season of podcasts (season 7). Podcasts cover topics such as regenerative land management, policy issues and knowledge exchange. You can also access the previous 6 seasons of podcasts via the link below. 

A report has been published on the Hydronation Chair website on "Water Metrics and Standards: Review of current approaches, challenges and issues". The report presents the findings of an initial scoping survey carried out by the Hydronation Chair in late 2022/early 2023 on behalf of the Water Metrics and Standards Working Group, convened by SEPA and NatureScot. The report makes a series of recommendations for next steps for developing water metrics (including those associated with NFM measures).

The Facility for Investment Ready Nature in Scotland (FIRNS) is a joint initiative between Scottish Government, NatureScot, and the National Lottery Heritage Fund Supporting the development of environmental projects in Scotland. FIRNS aims to value and monetise ecosystem services derived from the restoration of natural capital assets, in a model that will attract and repay investment or support an investment model that can be scaled up and duplicated elsewhere.