Case study:Restoring the River Mease Catchment
Project overview
| Status | In progress |
|---|---|
| Project web site | |
| Themes | Environmental flows and water resources, Fisheries, Flood risk management, Habitat and biodiversity, Hydromorphology, Land use management - agriculture, Monitoring, Urban, Water quality |
| Country | England |
| Main contact forename | Ruth |
| Main contact surname | Needham |
| Main contact user ID | User:Ruth_Needham |
| Contact organisation | Trent Rivers Trust |
| Contact organisation web site | http://www.trentriverstrust.org/ |
| Partner organisations | |
| Parent multi-site project | |
| This is a parent project encompassing the following projects |
No |
Project summary
The Mease catchment project demonstrates how coordinated, collaborative action can improve river health, support nature recovery, and sustain food production.
The catchment is dominated by high quality agricultural land and supports an active, productive farming community. Ashby and Measham are the main urban centres. In 1998, the river was designated as an SSSI for its small but nationally important, populations of Spined Loach Cobitis taenia and Bullhead Cottus gobio.
Like many lowland UK rivers, the Mease had long suffered from habitat loss, flooding, and pollution, particularly phosphate, at a time when food production was the priority. Few people, including the farmers, were aware of the Mease, its fish, or the pressures on its wildlife.
The SSSI/SAC designation in 2005 opened up funding that supported land use change and management practices that value nature. From the early 2000s, work began to bring farmers and stakeholders together. The early years were challenging; the protected status was unpopular with many farmers. The partnership strengthened significantly after TRT, and the EA came on board in 2013.
Since then, landowners have been closely engaged to identify solutions that balance food production with habitat creation and water retention on farmland.
The partnership has delivered substantial capital works and extensive engagement. Together we are working towards a genuinely restored catchment where food production is balanced with space for nature. We have demonstrated that rivers can be restored and connected to their floodplain within a productive farmed landscape.
Objectives of the Partnership 1. Restore the catchment by balancing land use for food production, nature recovery and making space for water. 2. Deliver nature based capital works across the River Mease and its tributaries. 3. Promote good practice and interventions that trap and store pollution and slow flood flows. 4. Restore the River Mease SSSI to good ecological health.
Monitoring surveys and results
Monitoring and evaluation is fundamental to all the activities, to help evaluate impact as well as inform future work. The evidence collected includes fixed point photography, invertebrate and species surveys, water quality monitoring, recording of landowner engagement and volunteer activity.
A programme of fixed point photography has been carried out across key restoration sites, capturing seasonal changes and fluctuations in water levels. These images clearly show how restored river habitats establish and evolve over time, and they provide valuable material to share with farmers and other stakeholders.
Surveys for freshwater aquatic invertebrates at key sites have been able to show how the river is starting to recover, once river restoration has been completed.
Phosphate monitoring at interventions sites and on all the major tributaries has helped to evaluate schemes, as well as inform the future targeting of work, including the nutrient neutrality framework.
Engagement has been a key focus. We maintain an engagement tracker which helps to strengthen our understanding of landowner and communities’ interests in the methods used.
Specific species surveys have been undertaken including White clawed-crayfish, fish and INNS.
The evidence is assessed on a regular basis to report the impact, influence future work and raise awareness of achievements.
Lessons learnt
This case study is pending approval by a RiverWiki administrator.
Image gallery
|
Catchment and subcatchment
Site
Project background
Cost for project phases
Reasons for river restoration
Measures
MonitoringHydromorphological quality elements
Biological quality elements
Physico-chemical quality elements
Any other monitoring, e.g. social, economic
Monitoring documents
Additional documents and videos
Additional links and references
Supplementary InformationEdit Supplementary Information
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||