News
Natural Flood Management
Natural Flood Management (NFM) is a core pillar of the RAINโs projects strategy. We are working with farmers and landowners in the Harpers Brook and Wootton Brook catchment areas to deliver nature-based flood management solutions.
These solutions will deliver a range of ecosystem services that will support the local community, including the strategic needs of local businesses, such as:
- Flood mitigation
- Drought resilience
- Improved water quality
- Carbon sequestration
- Biodiversity improvements
- Societal benefit.
To achieve these outcomes, we are seeking partner organisations to co-fund Natural Flood Management projects.
But first, let’s explain what NFM is:
NFM reduces flood risk by โslowing the flowโ or storing water in the land, mimicking natural hydrological processes to lessen the impact on communities downstream.
NFM can also create a range of other benefits including improving soil quality, habitat creation, carbon storage, water quality, community access and wellbeing.
These projects are co-developed by the landowner and our project partners, namely the Nene Rivers Trust (NRT). ย When funding is secured and the project design complete, NRT oversees project implementation, undertaken by delivery contractors.
These can include:
- Bunds and ditches
- Ponds and Scrapes
- Reconnected wetlands
- Leaky Dams
The video above shows several projects have been identified near Brigstock, Northants, including:
- Wetland creation on uncropped land, to hold back rainwater and increase biodiversity.
- Building of leaky dams and adding natural obstructions in the water channel to slow the flow of the stream.
We invite you & your organisation to get involved!
Co-funding is now needed to take these projects forward, in partnership.
If you would like to learn more about how you and your organisation can get involved with positively supporting local natural flood management and biodiversity projects, please contact our project partner and NFM lead, Tris Baxter Smith: RAIN@westnorthants.gov.uk
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The RAIN Project is funded by Defra as part of the ยฃ200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes, which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.
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