The proposed Melton Mowbray Distributor Road has to cross the River Eye SSSI. I led geomorphological modelling, detailed designs, and Public Inquiry Expert Witness, for channel re-meandering including floodplain and wetland habitat restoration. The SSSI improvements led to a Royal Town Planning Institute award for Planning for the Natural Environment.
Local residents are concerned about sedimentation and flooding from Thornton Beck, but no sediment data exist for the river. I synthesised a catchment sediment budget from fluvial audit, remote sensing data, catchment modelling and sediment transport theory, and modelled sediment management options to give quantitative evidence for funding allocations.
Led a team of 12 in one of the largest geomorphological surveys ever undertaken, delivering 2,000 km of geomorphological field surveys and mapping, of 6,000km in total. Baseline data on river forms and processes is generally non-existent at this scale; the project delivered unprecedented detail on the state of the water environment.