Weardale
Floodplains
Weardale, England, United Kingdom Restoring a landscape radically altered for hundreds of years. Part of the UNESCO Global Geopark in the North Pennines, Weardale’s history runs long. Since the twelfth century and even before, the area has experienced the degrading effects of deforestation, livestock farming, and lead and fluorspar industrial mining. Now, however, it is the site of an innovated natural flood management demonstration, an approach that reduces flood risk through habitat enhancement. The team enlisted the skills and knowledge of local landowners and farmers to inform an artificial intelligence model of the area, using the data to choose the site where the least number of features would attenuate the most water storage. Working within the archaeological constraints of this historic site and avoiding the nesting bird season and preventing harm to protected species and habitats, the team created 150 hectares of peatland and 75 hectares of woodland and restored 500 hectares of natural habitat, all of which contributed to reduced flood risk and increased water attenuation over 41 square kilometers. This project will help to increase understanding of the impact natural flood management can have on reducing flows along tributaries of the Upper River Wear, enabling scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of natural flood management at a catchment scale.
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