CG: Hi there and welcome to the Natural Resources Wales podcast mini-series on Flood Risk Management. My name is Cerian Gingell and I work here at Natural Resources Wales. In this series you will hear from the different teams who work together to reduce the risk of flooding to communities in Wales. This will give you a really good overview of what flood risk is, what we are doing to manage it in Wales and what impact the climate emergency is having on flood risk in Wales both now and in the future
Hello and welcome to episode 3 of the Natural Resources Wales flood risk management mini-series. Today I’m joined by Vicky Greest who is going to talk to us about Natural Flood Management and Nature Based Solutions. Welcome, and thanks so much for joining us.
So to start with it would be really good to hear a little bit about you, your education or maybe your career path, but basically what has led to you being with us here today.
VG: Thanks Kerry Ann. Thank you for having me. So I’ve had quite a varied career path, I studied biology at university and on graduating, I worked as a temporary fisheries assistant with the National Rivers Authority in Cumbria. I then worked in Scotland, Seattle, and I came to Wales in 1997 where I worked for the Environment Agency on science and research. I worked on different water management projects, including fisheries, water quality, water resources and hydropower. I then began a career in flood risk management in 2012 and I started working in the national flood risk strategic team for Environment Agency Wales and then Natural Resources Wales. So, I’ve been in my current role for eleven years and working on natural flood management for around four of those now.
CG: Wow. It is really interesting to hear how people have found their path but everyone I have spoken to so far has worked abroad at some point. So it is interesting that you mentioned Seattle. So you have worked in other parts of the UK but also in the States and lots of people seem to have gone all over the place. It is just an interesting thing to notice.
So we’ll start with the basics perhaps – last episode we had Rick Park on talking about coastal adaptation and he obviously then brough in a little bit about climate change. I wonder whether you can tell us a little bit about the nature emergency as well and maybe how it links into climate change, if it does?
VG: Yes, of course so the nature emergency and the climate emergency are very linked, very strongly linked and how we respond to one really does affect the other. So the UK State of Nature report shows that around two-fifths of species have declined in the UK in recent decades. And the studies show that climate change, along with other pressures are accelerating this decline. To help tackle climate change we need nature and we need these healthy ecosystems. So, it’s really essential that we do all that we can to reverse this decline in nature, to support action to address the climate emergency. So they are very linked.
CG: Very linked, yes, sounds like. So, I wonder then if perhaps that natural leads us into maybe you could give us a bit of an introduction to Natural Flood Management. Tell us what is it and perhaps why do we need it as well?
VG: Of course so one way in which we can help reverse the decline of biodiversity and address the challenges of climate change is through greater use of nature-based solutions. So nature-based solutions are actions which protect and sustainably manage our ecosystems to address societal challenges. Natural flood management is a nature-based solution to flooding and aims to use or restore natural features or processes to help address flood risk.
So natural flood management is used across a landscape to protect, restore, or mimic the natural functions of catchments, floodplains, rivers, and the coast. It is a potential approach to help reduce the risk of flooding from rivers, the sea and surface water run-off. Within this podcast now, I’m only going to talk about inland natural flood management, but you can find out more about nature-based solutions for the coast on our website, which you’ll find links to in the show notes I believe.
CG: Yes, that’s right we have got lots of links in there for people to go and have a nose about the work that we do.
VG: Great – that’s helpful. So when we are thinking about nature-based solutions and considering nature based solutions and natural flood management, the primary aim really should be to protect or restore the natural functioning of a river catchment as much as possible.
But where this isn’t possible, we try to use measures or actions to emulate the natural processes for the purpose of reducing flood risk. And these actions aim to perform one or more primary functions which can help support flood risk management and these are increasing the infiltration of the water, slowing the flow of water, storing water or holding back sediment.
What we are aiming to do is to reduce or delay the flow of water across a catchment and in doing so, reduce the amount of water entering and impacting those areas that are at risk of flooding.
CG: Which is of course only a good thing.
VG: Definitely. Absolutely. So there are different actions, a range of actions which we can use to help achieve this and I’ll explain a little more about these now. But to reduce flooding, you will need to use a lot of different actions and need to think about what is most suitable and appropriate for different parts of the catchment, the types of flooding you are seeking to address, and the downstream areas affected by the flooding. So, I will talk you through the different actions now, and I’ll start at the top of the catchment where we can think about upland peatland management and headwater restoration where in these areas we are really aiming to enhance peatland, restore the peatland and enhance the headwaters to be able to slow and store water and reduce that runoff lower down in the catchment.
CG: So ideally then it is supposed to sort of keep more of the water up at the top and away from the people and properties that are lower down.
VG: Absolutely yes that’s right. So then if we think more widely across a catchment, we can think about things like soil and land management actions and what we are aiming to do here is to restore or enhance the ability of the land to intercept, evaporate, infiltrate and store water. So when we are thinking about these types of actions we are thinking about changes to farm management practices to create good healthy soil, reducing compaction and allowing water to infiltrate better into the ground.
CG: So I guess with that, the more water that goes into the ground and is drained and stored in the ground, it is going to be less that is sitting on the top of the surface, building up and up and up, and potentially flowing elsewhere as well.
VG: That’s right.
CG: Is that how it works?
VG: Yes. To reduce that run-off from the land. So, we also have other actions to try to manage that surface water run-off, aiming to slow or divert overland flow pathways across the landscape and again encourage water to infiltrate back into the ground and again away from areas of flood risk. These sorts of things we can do, we can install deflectors or cross drains on tracks to divert water to the more permeable areas. We can also plant trees and hedges across the hill slopes to intercept surface water as it comes across the land and to try and increase the uptake of water and also the infiltration of the water back into the ground.
But we can further enhance these types of actions by creating storage within the run-off pathways to reduce again, to reduce the amount of water flowing downstream. These storage areas work by filling up during rainfall events and then they will slowly empty reducing that flow, that peak of water going the catchment. And these actions can include ponds, swales which are vegetated channels and also earth bunds as well.
CG: So there are lots of different things at work there.
VG: Yes. Definitely. It is about using these different actions in combination really, in the landscape that you are working in. Now, woodland creation and management is also a really good action for natural flood management as trees are very good at intercepting rainfall, increasing the evaporation of water and also increasing the infiltration into the soil.
Another natural flood management action that we use is the use of leaky barriers which are usually made of wood and can they be used to obstruct flows within a watercourse or they can intercept the flow of water across the land. Now, they work by actually intercepting the water and spreading the water out over a wider area to slow the flow and are most effective if they are formed naturally or if they are placed or built in a series. So, you need more than one of these barriers to work, they will work much better than just one on its own.
Finally, we can consider larger projects, such as river restoration which aims to restore natural processes in rivers, reintroducing meanders to slow the flow of water and reactivating the floodplains to reconnect the river with its natural flood plain in areas where there is space to do so, away from people and infrastructure, and allowing more space for water which can help alleviate flooding downstream where there might be homes or businesses.
CG: So its again trying to keep that water where there is less people essentially. It is trying to keep it in the grassier areas I suppose, perhaps places where there aren’t buildings, there aren’t people, there aren’t schools, there aren’t hospitals, that sort of thing. Is that kind of the general gist? That we are trying to just slow that flow of the water so if it does reach those people in the more populated areas it is perhaps less of a hazard then?
VG: Absolutely, yes. It is about giving the river space, making space for water, particularly those areas away from flood risk as you have just suggested there. But when we think about these types of natural flood management actions for reducing flooding, scale is a really important factor to consider, so the actions that I have talked through could be quite small in terms of the amount of water they are storing, so we need to do a lot when we are considering these actions to help reduce flooding. These approaches are most effective when they are developed around a whole river catchment, they may not work in isolation and they are best used in combination with other actions and activities that we undertake to reduce flood risk. Examples of that would be things like using nature-based solutions alongside one of our traditional hard engineered flood defence schemes.
CG: So, using it as a bit of a complementary thing then really, it sort of goes hand in hand maybe, it is not necessarily a stand-alone thing, but it would help in tandem with maybe some of the more conventional schemes that we have delivered over the years.
VG: Yes absolutely, that’s right.
CG: So natural flood management doesn’t necessarily stop flooding on its own. It is maybe more of a joint effort with other more traditional means of managing that flood risk.
VG: That’s right it’s a useful tool and it should be used alongside a range of other options to reduce the risk and impacts of flooding, such as the use of flood walls, embankments, our engineered flood defence schemes as I have already said and maybe storage reservoirs as well. Natural flood management complements our other flood risk management activities, some of which you can hear about in other episodes of this podcast series I believe.
CG: Yes, indeed.
VG: Natural Resources Wales are starting to do more natural flood management alongside our traditional flood alleviation schemes, we’re looking for opportunities to integrate natural flood management within our activities to help increase the resilience to flooding, but also to provide benefits to the environment and to address the challenges of the nature emergency.
CG: So, it is sort of a two-fold thing really isn’t it. Helps perhaps with the flood risk management side of things, but also helps with the environment and helps to tackle the climate and nature emergencies.
VC: Absolutely, yes. Particularly around the flooding we do need to use all the tools we have available and restoring our landscapes and managing water more sustainably across catchments supports all the work we do to reduce the risk and impacts of flooding to our communities.
But natural flood management is still quite an evolving area and we’re learning all the time. So, we work with academics and researchers along with key partners such as the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency to understand the latest evidence and how we apply this to our work. It’s really important that we are using the best available evidence to support our work and our activities.
CG: Yes, absolutely. So how can using natural flood management help with the climate and nature emergency? We have heard a little bit about perhaps helping to increase biodiversity. But what else is there?
VG: So alongside reducing the risk of flooding, the actions that I have talked about and referred to as natural flood management do provide many additional benefits for biodiversity so we are creating habitat, we are enhancing that biodiversity, and we are increasing the resilience of our ecosystems. Also reducing run-off of water from the land not only reduces the amount of water entering rivers and streams but can also reduce the amount of sediments and pollutants going into the water and this will have really great benefits for water quality also. Many of these actions are also really great for reducing carbon and storing carbon, so all these actions are really helping and contributing to action to address the climate and nature emergency.
CG: So again, it is not one thing, it is lots of little things all working together isn’t it?
VG: Yes definitely.
CG: So, what are the opportunities then for natural flood management in Wales?
VG: So, in Wales we have lots of opportunity for natural flood management. I have already mentioned the importance of scale and the need for lots of natural flood management across our catchments. In Wales over 95% of land use is classed as agriculture or woodland, so it’s really a good opportunity to consider how we can work together to manage our landscapes and catchments to deliver actions which help sustainably manage our natural resources and increase the resilience of our catchments to climate extremes and reverse the decline of biodiversity.
CG: There is lots of opportunity, but it is also a big challenge, isn’t it? Can we in Natural Resources Wales tackle this by ourselves or do we maybe need a bit of help?
VG: It is a massive challenge, there is lots to do and we in NRW certainly can’t do this alone. NRW needs to work alongside other flood risk management authorities to reduce the risk and impacts of flooding. But it’s not just risk management authorities, we all need to work together. Our partners, stakeholders and land managers can all play a role, we need a joined-up approach.
We’re starting to do some of this already, we’re working with the National Trust in the upper Conwy catchment, taking a holistic approach to tackle the effects of climate change and the loss of nature. The project is working with local communities, organisations, landowners, and tenants, to create better, more joined up habitats, rich in wildlife and resilient to the effects of climate change.
CG: So that really is a real collaboration, lots of people working together there to tackle one goal.
VG: It is a really great project. But also, the Welsh Government funded national peatland action programme also works with a range of partners to coordinate action to restore peatlands across Wales. So peatlands cover at least 4% of the Welsh landscape and support a rich suite of important habitats and species and deliver a range of other benefits, including regulating water flows, which we touched upon earlier. They are also great at storing carbon as well, so really delivering those multiple benefits we have already talked about.
The Welsh Government are also considering how land managers can be supported in the future to deliver actions which help address the climate and nature emergency through the future sustainable farming scheme and this will hopefully provide greater opportunities to work with a wide range of land managers too.
There is lots going on but to answer your question as to whether NRW alone can tackle this alone, we really can’t we need a joined-up approach working across many different sectors and organisations to address these challenges.
CG: It certainly sounds like it is a big challenge that we all need to work on really. And I suppose there are things people can do individually, recycling that sort of thing. It all helps doesn’t it. But it’s really good to hear all the positive work that’s going on in this area and as you say it is sort of in its infancy a little bit I suppose there hasn’t perhaps been as well as established as long as some of the more hard engineering type solutions. But there is a lot going on and a lot of research going into it as well as you touched upon earlier. Before we wrap up today’s episode, I’d really love to know what your favourite part of the job is? Do you have a particular part of the work that you find most rewarding?
VG: So I do really enjoy my job it is very varied and as you can imagine natural flood management touches on many different aspects of NRWs work, so I get to work with and learn from a huge range of experts withing NRW which is great and find it really rewarding to be involved in this area of work for flood risk management.
CG: Brilliant. Thanks Vicky. It has been really lovely talking to you.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. If you have any comments or questions, you can contact us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram or by the email address you can find in the show notes. You’ll also find links to our flood risk management pages where you can view some of the things we have talked about here today. Thanks for listening.