News
Water Friendly Farming results shared at Regional Flood and Coastal Committee meeting
26th July 2024Members of the Anglian (Northern) Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC) received an update on the Water Friendly Farming project on 19th July. Professor Jeremy Biggs, from Water Friendly Farming partner Freshwater Habitats Trust, presented the latest results and shared some insights from the project at the committee meeting in Lincoln.
Water Friendly Farming is the UK’s longest-running and most detailed catchment-scale agri-environment research demonstration project. Professor Biggs shared some of the findings and what they can tell us about the effectiveness of freshwater flooding and pollution mitigation measures.
After giving an overview of the work carried out across the three catchments since 2010, Professor Biggs shared some conclusions from Water Friendly Farming:
Evidence for the effectiveness of leaky barriers
Water Friendly Farming has quantified the effectiveness of leaky barriers across a range of design flood events, describing impacts at both local sites and downstream locations approximately 10 km below the barriers.
Professor Biggs highlighted key conclusions that have been drawn regarding the synchronisation of water flows, which indicate that implementing Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures indiscriminately across areas is not advisable.
Refining leaky barrier designs
Significant progress has been made in refining the design of leaky barriers to enhance their longevity, effectiveness, and ease of maintenance. This work contributes to a better understanding of the effectiveness and limitations of measures within Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes. Some of this research was published by the Water Friendly Farming partners in a recent paper in the journal River Research and Applications.
Water Friendly Farming is scrutinising the impact of specific measures such as large leaky woody dams, small leaky woody dams, and bunded ditches.
Water quality and freshwater biodiversity
The project has also quantified the benefits to water quality, revealing the substantial landscape changes required for improvement. Importantly, gains in freshwater biodiversity have been achieved through catchment interventions, particularly from creating new, clean water, ponds. This is backed-up by the project’s data on the benefits of small waters for freshwater biodiversity.
Professor Biggs also shared future plans for the project, which runs until 2027.
View the presentation.