The Wriggle River Improvement Group (WRIG) organised a public meeting at Hilfield Friary on 20th March 2024 to raise awareness of environmentally friendly interventions in the Wriggle River and Beer Hackett Stream catchments. The meeting was well attended by farmers, landowners, and residents in the Wriggle Valley. Quinton Deeley chaired the meeting.
Lorne Thomson of Yeovil Rivers Community Trust (lorne.thomson@yrct.org.uk) gave a presentation on using Natural Flood Management (NFM) techniques which promote natural processes to reduce flooding. The importance of slowing the flow of runoff into river channels was highlighted as were the many other benefits of NFM, such as improved water quality, reduced soil erosion and enhanced biodiversity. Lorne showed how NFM interventions, e.g. leaky dams, ponds, swales, hinged trees and runoff pathway barriers help to reduce the impact of increased rainfall linked to climate change.
Roy Hayes from FWAG South West (Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group) (roy.hayes@fwagsw.org.uk) discussed sources of funding to carry out NFM. He advised on types of government and private sources of funding, and risks and benefits when installing measures to prevent flooding. He spoke about working with the constraints of the location, using material on site to create features, the need to view flood zones and use flow pathway mapping.
Sam Vincent, a farmer in the Wriggle valley, gave examples of using NFM interventions on his farmland. He spoke about slowing the speed and volume of water before it reaches other streams to protect properties and infrastructure while enabling farmland to continue being used as normal water flow resumes. He reminded us that the water from the Wriggle is part of a wider catchment area feeding into the Somerset Levels, and showed slides of flooding of a farmer he knows on the Levels to illustrate the problem.
There was a good discussion after the talks. One question concerned whether WRIG is evaluating NFM interventions in the valley to see what difference they make. Quinton said that ‘before and after’ videos show how water flow is slowed by NFM measure such as leaky dams during heavy rain with better use of holding capacity in the channel, but university research is required to assess the difference NFM makes to flooding events in the valley. Lorne Thomson said that Cardiff and Worcester universities will be assisting with this research. Another important question concerned whether NFM just caused more flooding upstream, and the approach should be to speed up rather than slow the flow. Lorne said it is important to undertake a site assessment to check what interventions are best. In-channel interventions (e.g. leaky dams) work well when there is unused storage capacity in the channel. Where upstream flooding is a risk, other in-field measures such as creating ponds, deepening ditches and swales, and temporary flood meadows can hold large amounts of water to reduce peak flows in the main rivers to prevent flooding downstream. The aim is to slow the flow across the whole landscape, not just tributaries and rivers, so all farmers and landowners have a potential contribution to make, whether small or large depending on their land holding and needs.
For any further information about the WRIG or NFM please contact lorne.thomson@yrct.org.uk. WRIG would like to thank the Friary for hosting the meeting (and for providing tea and delicious cakes!).