Water

Making Space for Water
Land Management

Latest News

  • 4 July - £500,000 grant made available to contribute towards one or two multi-objective flood management demonstration projects. Any organisation or partnership with the capacity to deliver such a project is invited to submit an outline proposal to Defra by 29th August 2008. See also associated press release.


Introduction

There are two projects investigating the role of land use and land management in delivering flood risk management. The first (HA6) will investigate catchment scale land use and its implications on flood risk, while the second (HA7) will identify good practices in land management at the farm scale with respect to flood risk and environmental benefits.

The key elements of these projects are:

  • An assessment of projects/initiatives that are aimed at influencing rural land use or management to identify their likely impact on flood generation. The assessment will identify where rural land use or land management can reduce flood risk at a farm or catchment scale, how land use change can be delivered and where other public benefits can be provided, for example biodiversity, reduction in diffuse pollution.
  • Progress a methodology for identification of sensitive catchments to enable effective targeting of environmental stewardship at the catchment scale and other agri-environment measures.
  • Review current research: particularly other relevant disciplines and future needs as identified from this review and FD2114 research plan.
  • In light of evidence of catchment or farm scale impacts scope and identify areas of policy, regulation or organisational responsibility that need to be reviewed to achieve future objectives.
  • Make recommendations for the future direction of catchment and farm scale rural land management in relation to managing flood risk and develop implementation and influencing plan to take forward.
  • Report on best practice farm scale land management measures that reduce flood risk and deliver multiple benefits.
  • Inform delivery of farm advice given by Environment Agency, Natural England and others to ensure delivery of best practice.

Final Outputs


R&D Update Review

An R&D Update ReviewFurther information is available on our Help page about downloading or reading Adobe Acrobat documents of the impact of land use and management of flooding was published in March 2007. This review informs HA6 and HA7 with current research relevant to the role of land management and land use in flood risk management and identifies future research and development needs. The objectives of the review are:

  • To update evidence from Defra Research project FD2114 on the impacts of rural land use changes and management on flood generation in rural areas, at both the local and catchment scale within the UK; and
  • To review and prioritise future research needs in this area.

The review has been developed from published literature, ongoing studies and additional information obtained through consultation with a number of key individuals working in this area between January and March 2007.  In doing so, the review reflects the most up-to-date evidence, and moreover an indication of where current research is being targeted. The findings are presented according to five main land use or management practices:

  • afforestation and deforestation
  • agricultural drainage
  • peat drainage and moorland gripping
  • pasture
  • cultivation techniques.

FD2114 acknowledges that ‘there are major gaps in knowledge concerning the effects of various interventions aimed at mitigating flood generation, particularly at the catchment scale. Whilst this update review has identified a number of further studies and many ongoing projects which provide substantial evidence of the effects at the local scale, the findings continue to suggest at a catchment scale many gaps in our knowledge still exist, and in particular how local scale effects propagate downstream.

The review provided the opportunity to identify new research needs as well as peer review research recommendations identified by FD2114. The report identified future research priorities as follows:

  • From FD2114: National mapping of vulnerability to land use and management change; and Multiscale Experimentation, Monitoring and Modelling.
  • And from the update review: Need to develop integrated models; Catchment mapping of vulnerability; A combined approach with other policy initiatives including Agri-environment schemes and Catchment Sensitive Farming; and Further investigations into the influence of climate on runoff. 

Ripon Multi Objective Project

Defra have funded a project which uses sensitivity testing to examine the impact of rural land management changes on the generation of floods:

Further information about the Ripon Project can be found here.

Page last modified: 4 July 2008
Page published: 23 December 2005

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs