Integrated Management of Floodplains

Project Status: Completed
Type of Project: Research Project
Principal Investigator: Prof Joseph Morris, Cranfield University (Email)
Website
Publications, Data and Other Outputs

Submission to the Parliamentary Commission
Policy and Practice Notes

Objectives

Agricultural Flood Defence Schemes in floodplain and coastal areas were once an important element of Government support for farmers in Britain. More recently, however, changing priorities in the countryside, concern about environmental quality and perceptions of increased flood risk in lowland areas, in part linked to climate change, have promoted a re-appraisal of land management options and policies for floodplain areas.

A selection of agricultural flood defence schemes, previously studied by the research team in the 1980s, will be re-examined to identify and explain changes in land and water management that have occurred over the last 40-years. This will involve stakeholder and institutional analysis, farmer interviews, field observations and modelling of hydrological and related ecological processes. The influence of agricultural policy, interacting with farmer circumstances and motivation, will also be explored.

Using a mixture of scientific perspectives, options for future land and water management will be identified for the study sites. Opportunities for achieving a wide range of benefits will be assessed relating, for example, to farming, biodiversity, amenity, flood management, water quality and the wider rural economy. The study will inform strategies for floodplain management, helping to develop approaches that are appealing to major stakeholders.

Joining Things Up In Floodplains River Restoration Centre’s 9th Annual networking Conference , April 16th , Exeter University http://www.therrc.co.uk/rrc_conferences.php
April-June  2008 stakeholder workshop report