Three year natural flood prevention plan
The National Trust and Admiral have announced a three year partnership focusing on natural flood prevention in England and Wales. Over the next three years they will work to restore vital landscapes and raise awareness of how nature based solutions can help tackle the growing threat of flooding.
With flooding already affecting one in six homes in the UK and that number expected to rise to one in four by 2050. They will focus on natural flood management to slow water flow, and create healthier habitats to make a difference for people, wildlife and the climate. The project will deliver restoration work in Wales, Somerset and the Lake District.
The first of these projects is now underway in Wales where the National Trust team aims to restore the Migneint Blanket Bog - one of the country’s most bio diverse upland habitats.
Working at the very peak of the Migneint plateau, the project will restore around 12 hectares of the most eroded peatland over the next three years. The area is a rare and protected landscape.
Blanket bogs lock away carbon, regulate water flow, and support rare wildlife. There is no protection from more frequent and extreme rainfall or strong winds and the peat is at huge risk of erosion. When peat dries out and erodes, releases carbon and worsens flooding downstream.
Contractors have begun by reshaping peat bogs, building dams, and creating ponds to raise water levels. The aim is to encourage the return of sphagnum moss, a water-loving plant that kick starts the healing process and helps form new peat. As vegetation returns the surface roughness increases which helps water retention and reduces flooding downstream.
Peat forms at just 1mm a year meaning a single metre can take up to 1,000 years to develop. So volunteers will be transplanting thousands of sphagnum moss plug plants sourced from elsewhere on the site. Making this a brilliant opportunity to nurture environmental awareness, community responsibility and pride in natural landscapes.
Together, these initiatives are piecing together a mosaic of healthy peatland, restoring the natural structure and resilience of the landscape for generations to come.
Work will pause in the spring to protect ground-nesting birds, with monitoring continuing to assess progress. While the site may look raw at first, visible signs of recovery are expected by summer as vegetation takes hold, and the bog begins to heal.
Work at the other two sites is soon to get underway. Creating new ponds, restore rivers and planting alongside river corridors about to start in Cumbria, and the creation of new wetlands in Somerset starting early next year.