Large Woody Debris

[Charlieh]

Here are a few pics from last Friday carrying out large woody debris work on one of the local rivers, the idea behind this is several fold, historically environment agency and NRA used to remove a lot of the woody material from rivers, it is now recognized this was the wrong approach and in many cases has actually made flooding issues worse, these rivers are also devoid of cover for fish from predators and also there is little habitat for invertebrates, so we try to create habitat that provides cover for fish, crayfish and inverts, and in this example the aim is also to help scour the river bed to create pools in what is essentially a man made channel.

[Charlieh]

a couple more

[David oakman]

Nice pics, but here i still have to remove fallen trees from the rivers as they just dam up and then flood the woods and they flood the water rats tunnels.

[Graham]

Is that Bentley brook?

[Charlieh]

thing is up here all the rivers are so free of obsticals that when they flood they all peak together and make downstream flooding worse, by increasing delays such as this and increasing floodplain resistance, eg wet woodland then urban flooding is reduced, this is where a lot of government funding is heading,

 

on the water rats they will be ok, thats what a large part of my work is conserving, they prefer sluggish water so this kind of dam actual increases habitat suitability

[Charlieh]

Is that Bentley brook?

 

nope it isn't, do you fish there?

[David Humphries]

I'd love to diversify some more, and carry out similar work, but the Conservation Teams at our sites do this specific type of habitat work.

 

 

Great work & photos Charlie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Graham]

Yes and the Dove and Churnet.

[Graham]

Keep up the good work. It's good to know the EA are now allowing this when at one time it was as quckly to the sea as possible.

[Parker]

Looks like a nice job!