River and floodplain management measures involve the restoration of a stretch of river and/or its associated floodplain to a more natural functioning state. This can include channel re-meandering or channel feature reinstatement (e.g. measures to restore channel river bars). Where redundant embankments are present, it may also be possible to breach, set back or remove these embankments, restore floodplain connectivity and re-activate floodplain features. Where naturally occurring wood is absent from a river, leaky barriers can be installed. These help attenuate flood flows by slowing and deflecting flow out of the channel on to the floodplain, thereby increasing water storage.
The West Cumbria Rivers Trust have recently published a new handbook called "Natural Flood Management Handbook: a practical guide for farmers". The book was funded by West Cumbria Rivers Trust, Environment Agency, Newground and Heritage Lottery Fund. The guide has been developed to offer simple, clear information on NFM measures for landowners and farmers in NW England.
The European Environment Agency have published a short report on "why should we care about floodplains?". It highlights a series of key messages about the role floodplains play in delivering a range of ecosystem services. The report can be accessed via the link below from the European Environment Agency website.
A short report of the Interreg Building with Nature Coordination meeting has been published by Sniffer. The Scottish Government hosted the coordination meeting in Dundee in September and delegates had the opportunity to visit Eddleston, Montrose and St. Andrews NFM projects. A link to the workshop report can be found below.
Stroneslaney Farm Riparian Tree Planting Projects main aim was to boost riparian trees along the River Balvaig within the floodplain. Currently, the river lacks riparian tree cover which is suspected to be due to deer populations and livestock limiting natural regeneration in the area. This means that there is a lack of new trees growing to fill the gaps of older trees coming to the end of their life along the river.
The Rottal Burn in the South Esk Catchment was re-meandered in 2012. During the project 1100m of new channel plus backwaters was created, connection to wetlands was established, and 2000 native trees were planted.
An open access book is now available online which provides lots of best practice examples of sustainable river management. "Riverine Ecosystem Management: Science for Governing Towards a Sustainable Future" aims to be of interest to a range of readers from scientists to practitioners. For more information on the book please refer to the link below.
A podcast released by America Adapts and sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund entitled, Flooding and Nature Based Solutions - the good, the bad and the ugly of flooding features interviews with experts discussing Nature based solutions to flood management.
The Building with Nature (BwN) project (funded by EU Interreg) has produced a short video to explain the project. The Scottish Government, SEPA and Tweed Forum are partners on the project and are focused on the 'catchments' workpackage (the Eddleston catchment is a case study site in the project).
The Environment Agency, CIRIA and other partners are hoping to develop technical guidance on specific Natural Flood Management measures. To begin with they have created a short scoping survey. This is your opportunity to contribute to this survey.
The survey is accessible via the link below and will close towards the end of June.
The work aimed to create a mosaic of river and floodplain habitats by allowing active river processes to develop a multi-threaded (anabranched) system together with floodplain wet woodland features. Prior to the work, the burn was a degraded perched watercourse and flowed around the edge of a field, with dredged spoil deposits used to build the flood embankments, thus disconnecting the burn from its floodplain area.