Flooding has become a big issue after large parts of Yorkshire and Derbyshire were left underwater after huge rainfall totals in the last week.
There have been calls for more flood defences but flood walls, gates and ditches tend to push flood waters from one place to another. Instead, there is a growing recognition that floods can also be controlled by natural means.
Part 1: An Introduction to NFM
Flooding has become an increasing problem in the UK and Europe. Here in Kent, we’ve witnessed a number of remarkable flood events in recent years, such as the floods of 2013, when on Christmas Eve 100 homes had to be evacuated in the village of Yalding, leaving costly damage to property and immense heartbreak in their wake.
Horse power is being used at Harden Moor in West Yorkshire, as part of a project to trial natural flood management techniques to reduce the risk of flooding.
Ghalm is an 8 year old North Swedish Forest Horse, and has been recruited to the team to help move very large trees around the site to construct leaky dams.
New infographic from Natural Course - view
The government’s lack of a long-term strategy on SuDS is one of the three main threats to effective water level and flood risk management, according to the chairman of the ADA.
Speaking at the ADA’s 80th annual conference in London, the out-going chairman Henry Cator listed three main threats: over-regulation, lack of investment and the government’s lack of a strategy for future planning of SuDS.
2 PhD opportunities are being advertised by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Both studentships are CASE funded with a timely focus on Natural Flood Management.
Project 1: Quantifying the effectiveness of natural flood management in lowland catchments - focus on hydrology
The East Suffolk Catchments Partnership brought together farmers and local people to visit Natural Flood Management sites upstream of Debenham in Suffolk.
Mix of hard and soft approaches needed for NFM says WWF
Flood risk managers should combine multiple methods of hard and soft, structural and non-structural approaches when applying the integrated flood management, a WWF guide to natural flood risk management has recommended.
The Aldersgate Group has begun a one year green finance project, looking at how to overcome the barriers to investment in natural flood management and green infrastructure.
A new modelling study, commissioned by The Rivers Trust, shows that extensive and appropriately located Natural Flood Management (NFM) could make a significant difference to flood flows which would compliment traditional engineering measures.
The Rivers Trust has been working with JBA Consulting, Lancaster University and United Utilities to investigate how extensive NFM in large recently flooded catchments could have reduced flood flows in extreme storms, such as Storm Desmond in December 2015, which caused an estimated £500million of damage.
