Day 1 - 1st April 2025
08:30 | Registration opens |
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08:30 | Networking and early viewing poster session in CAMBRIDGE & DURHAM | 90 mins | ||
Session 1 (OXFORD SUITE) | ||||
10:00 | Opening announcements and Welcome / Martin Janes (the River Restoration Centre) | |||
10:15 | Freshwater Restoration in Europe: Lessons Learned from the EU MERLIN Project / Sebastian Birk (University of Duisburg-Essen) | |||
10:30 | UK River restoration: The true state of play / Neil Entwistle (Rebalance Earth) & George Heritage (Dynamic Rivers) | |||
10:45 | Discussion | |||
11:00 | SHORT COFFEE BREAK | 30 mins | ||
| 11:30 | The Blue Spaces programme / Jenny Wheeldon (Esmee Fairbairn Foundation) | |||
| 11:45 | Embracing uncertainty: river restoration and Environmental Land Management Schemes / Mattie Biddulph & Oli Burns (Environment Agency) | |||
| 12:00 | Making Space for Water / Tessa Wardley (The Rivers Trust) | |||
| 12:15 | Discussion | |||
| 12:30 | LUNCH in CAMBRIDGE AND DURHAM | 75 mins | ||
Session 2 | |||||
OXFORD SUITE | KENSINGTON | AMBASSADOR | |||
Enabling Restoration | Headwater Habitats | Advances in Monitoring | |||
Chair: Jo Cullis (RRC) | Chair: Marc Naura (RRC) | Chair: Richard Treves (RRC) | |||
| 13:45 | Exploring the role of Landscape Enterprise Networks for Catchment Management / Amelia Heath (Forth Rivers Trust) & Isabel Ross (3 Keel) | Restoring temporary streams – what makes them different? / Judy England (Environment Agency) | Which method, where & why? Appraisal & demonstration of complementary, multi-scale hydromorphology assessment tools / Helen Moggridge (Cartographer) | ||
| 14:00 | Embedding watercourse conservation and enhancement into Local Plans / Cat Robinson (Environment Agency) & Paul Holton (Buckinghamshire Council) | Restoring ecological resilience in headwater catchments / Hannah Joyce and Kevin Skinner (AtkinsRéalis), Mark Jessup (Portsmouth Water), Marcus Stroud (Forestry England) and Mark Dunscombe (APEM) | Exploring relationships between benthic invertebrate assemblages and riparian dispersal in the context of river restoration / Talek Renals (University of Birmingham) | ||
| 14:15 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
| 14:25 | Unlocking River Restoration Opportunities through Countryside Stewardship. Experiences from the River Nene / Antony Mould & Andy Sadler (Environment Agency) | The power of small waters in catchment restoration: 5 years research from Pitsford Water Friendly Farming project / Hannah Worker (Freshwater Habitats Trust) | Monitoring ecological change with environmental DNA and other molecular tools: Pros, cons, and deployment strategies / Lewis Campbell (South East Rivers Trust) | ||
| 14:40 | Restoring England’s ‘Cinderella streams’: emulating nature and working with natural processes on low energy groundwater fed rivers / Matt Parr (Environment Agency) Paige Donelly (East Mercia Rivers Trust) | Wilder Doddington: Re-wetting a headwater landscape - Isobel Wright (Doddington Hall), Josh Robins (RRC) | Developing Drone Tech to Deliver at Watershed scale / John Chantry (Atlantic Salmon Trust) | ||
| 14:55 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
15:05 | POSTER & EXHIBITION SESSION WITH TEA & COFFEE | ||||
| - 45 mins - | |||||
Session 3 | |||||
OXFORD SUITE | KENSINGTON | AMBASSADOR | |||
Applying NFM Principles | Removing barriers for free flowing rivers | Involving communities in restoration | |||
Chair: Kevin Skinner (AtkinsRéalis) | Chair: Ian Dennis (Royal HaskoningDHV) | Chair: Jane Prady (RRC) | |||
| 15:50 | Brant Fell Common Bryophytes and NFM Design / Ryan Jennings (JBA Consulting) | LIFE Dee River - restoring the Dee / Joel Rees-Jones (Natural Resources Wales) | The South East Story: land owner perspectives on restoration projects / Cleo Alper & Samantha Hughes (South East Rivers Trust) | ||
| 16:05 | How 'Leaky' Should a Leaky Dam Be? / Anthony Jones (Durham University) | The Great Yorkshire Rivers Partnership / Chris Bell & Andy Sadler (Environment Agency) | Partnership and community informed approach to mainstreaming NFM / Corrie Grafton (WWT) | ||
| 16:20 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
| 16:30 | The Dartmoor Headwaters Project: Natural Flood Management in a Working Landscape / Angelique McBride (Dartmoor National Park Authority) & Emma Magee (Environment Agency) | Ecostreams for LIFE: Large-scale restoration of heavily degraded watercourses in Northern Sweden / Jonathan Nordin & Oscar Lundgren (County Administrative Board of Vasterbotten, Sweden) | From Riverbank to the Office, how water quality data collected by citizen scientists can highlight opportunities for river restoration / Sarah Taigel (Norfolk Rivers Trust) | ||
| 16:45 | Working Wetlands: Stage 0 stream restoration at Farrantshayes Farm / David Thomas (Devon Wildlife Trust) | Open Aireways – Implementing weir removals at catchment scale / Nick Milsom (Aire Rivers Trust) & Neil Williams (AECOM) | Dipping a toe in the water: Local authorities collaborate on the restoration of the Pix Brook / Sharon Russel-Verma (Central Bedfordshire Council) | ||
| 17:00 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
17:10 | MOVE TO KEYNOTE SESSION | ||||
Session 4 (OXFORD SUITE) | ||||
Keynote | ||||
Chair: Martin Janes (RRC) | ||||
17:20 | Keynote speaker: Charlie Burrell (Knepp Estate) Charlie is co-owner of Knepp Estate and the driver behind its renowned rewilding project, an inspiration for many conservationists. Knepp has been featured in CountryFile, the BBC's Wild Isles Documentary, and several national news outlets. With his experience of both farming and conservation, Charlie will provide a fascinating perspective on restoration. | |||
17:45 | Questions | |||
18:00 | CLOSE OF DAY 1 | |||
UK River Prize Dinner | |||
OXFORD SUITE | |||
19:00 | Drinks & Networking | ||
20:00 | 2025 UK River Prize & River Champions Awards Dinner | ||
| CLOSE OF DAY 1 | ||
Day 2 - 2nd April 2025
Session 5 | |||
*** Pre-booked choice of one session or one site visit *** | |||
09:00 - 12:30 | |||
A: Conserving and Restoring our Chalk Streams Presentation Session (OXFORD SUITE) | Chalk Streams Restoration Strategy Update / Alison Matthews (The Rivers Trust) Driven to the Brink of Extinction: Partnership Working to Conserve Lincolnshire Chalk Streams / Rachel Cooper (AECOM) Addressing the Water Crisis in the CamEO Catchment through River and Floodplain Restoration / Edward Fleming (Mott MacDonald) Animals assemble! Revealing ecological community response to river restoration / Hannah King (University of Southampton) Delivering catchment-wide ecological resilience through the AMP7 WINEP - Lukely Brook and Plaish Meadows, Isle of Wight / Kevin Skinner & Eleanore Miles (AtkinsRéalis), Richard Gamble & Matt Dempster (Southern Water), Aaron Mcdonnell (FiveRivers) AMP7 Adaptive Management - River Restoration / Brad Evans (South East Water) Working Together to Restore the Upper River Ivel – A Community-Led Approach / Nick Balmer & Douglas White (The RevIvel Association - Restoring the River Ivel) A new dawn of funding for UK rivers driven by water companies environmental regulatory objectives? Case studies from Southern Waters WINEP / Richard Gamble & Christopher Woolhouse (Southern Water) Partnership delivery on Urban Chalk Stream / Alex Haydon (Mott MacDonald) | ||
B: Floodplain Reconnection, "Stage 0" - Understanding and Application Workshop Session (KENSINGTON) Facilitators: George Heritage (Dynamic Rivers) | Including short presentations: Catchment scale Restoration on the Wandering Worfe / Oliver Terndrup & Luke Neal (Shropshire Wildlife Trust) Reset or Rejuvenate: Achieving a self-sustaining fluvial system controlled by contemporary processes / George Heritage (Dynamic Rivers) Tattiscombe Re-wetting Project / Alex Palmer (National Trust) | ||
C: Delivering dynamic river systems using Biodiversity Net Gain Workshop Session (AMBASSADOR) Facilitators: Eleanore Miles (AtkinsRealis), Jenny Collins (Wild Environmental), Sarah Jane Scott (Environment Agency), Lucy Shuker (ASK Hydromorph) | Including short presentations: Beavers and the River Condition Assessment / Angela Gurnell (Cartographer & Queen Mary University of London) Using river restoration strategies and natural fluvial processes to design BNG for rivers and streams / Helena Parsons (WSP) The value of instream wood on floodplain hydraulics, hydro-ecological function and Biodiversity Net Gain / Adam Church & Emily Brown (AtkinsRealis) | ||
D: Landscape scale restoration for consultants and practitioners: ambitious designing and accounting for risk and constraints. Emerging challenges and opportunities through Environmental Land Management. Workshop Session (BUCKINGHAM) Facilitators: Jo Shanahan, Mattie Biddulph, Oli Burns, Jo Old (Environment Agency) | We will discuss the blockers and enablers to delivery of river restoration at larger scales. How do we navigate the need to account for risk? How do we design without a fixed outcome? Landscape Recovery is one of the three new ELMS in England and is highly ambitious. Landscape-scale restoration requires innovative approaches that work with nature to restore natural processes over longer temporal scales. This workshop will explore how we as designers and regulators, can help these schemes and their custodians to manage uncertainty to deliver dynamic, resilient restoration that works with nature. | ||
E: Source to Sea: The Freshwater, Estuarine and Coastal Continuum Workshop Session (OSBORNE) | Including short presentations: Is Estuarine Environmental Management Fit for Purpose? / Toni Scarr (Environment Agency) Lower Darent Riverside Strategy ; Using NbS for flood defence and placemaking / Nicole Gonzalez-Tarrio (Arup) Applying a Natural Capital Approach from Source to Sea: Blackwater and Colne Case Study / Jo Bayes (Environment Agency) Why adopting source-to-sea thinking matters to the success of habitat restoration in our estuaries and coasts / Hannah Westoby (Environment Agency) The Dalia Stream Restoration Project / Avi Uzan (Israel Nature and Parks Authority) and Shylee Berg (AGMA) | ||
Site Visit 1: Knepp Rewilding Run by: Knepp Wildland Foundation with packed lunch, returning at 13:00. | Early start ~ 8am for 8.30 departure! “Knepp Estate is one of the most exciting wildlife conservation projects in the UK, and indeed in Europe. If we can bring back nature at this scale and pace just 16 miles from Gatwick airport we can do it anywhere. I’ve seen it. It’s truly wonderful, and it fills me with hope.” - Professor Sir John Lawton, author of the 2010 Making Space for Nature report | ||
Site Visit 2: Cockshut Stream Restoration Project Run by: cbec & Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust | 09:00 departure! The Cockshut is a chalk stream that had previously been straightened and realigned to become an embanked ditch. In June 2023, 670m of the Cockshut Stream was realigned in Lewes Brooks SSSI. Several pools, scrapes and enhanced ditches were created which together form 6.3ha of wetland around the new channel. | ||
12:30 - LUNCH | |||
- 60 mins - | |||
Session 6 | |||||
OXFORD SUITE | KENSINGTON | AMBASSADOR | |||
Learning by Doing | A Difficult Journey for Salmon | Working with Wetlands | |||
Chair: Jason Winslow (RSK & RRC Board) | Chair: Sam Austin (RRC) | Chair: Joshua Anthony (RRC) | |||
| 13:30 | Catchment-scale restoration - how far can we go? 12 years of lessons from the River Stiffkey / Jonah Tosney (Norfolk Rivers Trust) | Delivering at a Watershed Scale / Alison Baker (Atlantic Salmon Trust) | Chamber Mead Wetland: the role of a Rivers Trust and Catchment Partnership in creating nature-based solutions / Bella Davies (South East Rivers Trust) | ||
| 13:45 | The evolving nature of delivering a river restoration scheme / Francess Haine (Stantec) | Salmon Data Mobilisation / Graeme Diack (Missing Salmon Alliance / Atlantic Salmon Trust) | Restoring wetlands in National Parks / Suzannah Egleston & Lorna Bailey-Towler (Forestry England) | ||
| 14:00 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
| 14:10 | The Central Monmouthshire Opportunity Catchment: The good, the bad, and the ugly / Edward Davies (Natural Resources Wales) | Landscape restoration with a focus on Atlantic salmon / Lorraine Hawkins (Dee District Salmon Fishery Board) | The Great North Fen - lessons learnt from the front line of riverscape restoration in Northern England / Adam Broadhead (Arup) | ||
| 14:25 | River Tarell large wood introduction project / Peter Jones (Natural Resources Wales) | A Journey to the River (and) Sea – Improving Salmonid fish population in the South Teign catchment / Lauriane Allard (Stantec) | The story of the Cockshut Stream restoration project / Chris Bibb (Lewes District Council), Jon Wheatland (cbec) | ||
| 14:40 | Discussion | Discussion | Discussion | ||
14:50 | SHORT BREAK - MOVE TO FINAL SESSION (10 mins) | ||||
Session 7 (OXFORD SUITE) Chair: RRC Board | ||||
| 15:00 | Defra update / Defra Water Team | |||
15:10 | Restoring hydrological resilience through floodplain reconnection / Matthew Johnson (University of Nottingham) & Matt Parr (Environment Agency) | |||
15:25 | 14 Years of the Water Friendly Farming Project / Jeremy Biggs (Freshwater Habitats Trust) | |||
15:40 | Discussion | |||
| 15:50 | Closing remarks and summary / Session Chair | |||
| 16:00 | CONFERENCE CLOSE | |||