SRA Annual Report 2020-21: Strategic Approach to Mitigation
Contents – quick links
Background
Simple definitions
Activity in 2020-21
Background
To help Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) and its partners streamline flood risk management projects on the Somerset Levels, Natural England is developing a Strategic Approach to Mitigation.
Mitigation means actions that must be taken – by law – to offset any unavoidably negative effects that projects will have, considered individually and in combination.
Numerous factors on the Somerset Levels interact in complex and changing ways. A delicate balance, that is difficult to achieve, has to be struck between ‘too wet’ and ‘too dry’.
The objectives of Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan, which is overseen by the SRA, also apply with particular historic force on the Somerset Levels and Moors. The SRA invests in activities such as dredging and Sowy-King’s Sedgemoor Drain enhancements because having more water moving through river channels can – to quote the Flood Action Plan – “reduce the severity, duration and impact of flooding”. Achieving greater capacity and reducing flooding can then help to “maintain access for communities and business” and “ensure strategic road and rail connectivity”.
On the other hand, the Flood Action Plan is adamant that wetlands need to be wet – up to a certain point and in the right places. The Flood Action Plan requires the SRA to “make the most of the special characteristics of Somerset”: its internationally important biodiversity and environment, its cultural heritage. The Somerset Levels are one of the most important places for wildlife in England (and Europe), especially for wintering and breeding waders and waterfowl. Tens of thousands of birds feed in parts of the Levels over the winter in ‘shallow splash’ conditions. So, for SRA projects to be legally compliant with habitat regulations, designated sites and wider wetlands (technically known as Functionally Linked Land) must be protected.
Another Flood Action Plan objective is to “promote business confidence and growth”. This
allows for many possibilities. For example, the government is planning to introduce new kinds of subsidies for farmers and landowners. The emphasis will be on paying for ‘public goods’, that is doing things which have popular and useful benefits, like choosing to make land available for the storage of flood water. As a pilot Environmental Land Management exercise for Defra, and in conjunction with the Adapting the Levels project, the SRA is funding a water storage trial on selected parts of the Somerset Levels later in 2021.
Climate change is also predicted to intensify problems with flooding and drought on the Somerset Levels and Moors.
A Strategic Approach to Mitigation therefore aims to achieve five broad objectives. These are:
- reduce costs and risks
- enable projects to go ahead
- secure environmental benefits
- support local community, farming, business and tourism interests
- satisfy local and national policies
Simple definitions
‘Shallow splash’ describes wet grassland that attracts and supports wild creatures, including birds such as waders and waterfowl.
Designated sites are places given special status and extra legal protection because of their ecological or geological value. Sites can be of local, national or international importance. Nearly 6,400 hectares of the Somerset Levels & Moors are wetlands of international significance.
Functionally Linked Land means areas of land or sea outside the boundaries of designated sites but critical to the success of those sites.
Raised Water Level Areas are areas of land where water levels have been engineered to be held at a higher level than in surrounding areas. This is done to provide better breeding and wintering conditions for waders and wildfowl inhabiting the Somerset Levels and Moors.
2020-21 activity
During 2020-21 Natural England devised a two-year plan for developing and implementing a Strategic Approach to Mitigation, with four main interlocking strands:
1. Developing a protocol for monitoring the condition of the Somerset wetlands.
2. Developing a methodology for mapping wider wetland areas, especially Functionally Linked Land of critical importance to wintering birds.
The purpose of these two moves is to establish a baseline against which it will be easier to detect environmental changes. Several important benefits will result from this. For example, better information about sensitive locations will help the SRA and its partners to produce legally compliant schemes more quickly, at a lower cost. In addition, it will open up the possibility of fast-tracking critically important works, because with the right kinds of understanding, mitigation activities could be agreed more swiftly and done upfront.
3. Initiating the updating of Water Level Management Plans and establishing operational protocols including a set of Environmental Trigger points across Somerset.
4. Developing alternative solutions to the current suite of Raised Water Level Areas.
These two moves are also significant, both in themselves and because of the ways they connect with other initiatives. Success will require the building of a consensus about water level management on the Somerset Levels and Moors, and constructive engagement with the proposed payments for “public goods” that the Government wants to introduce for farmers and landowners. Those “public goods” look very likely to include storing floodwater and maintaining wildlife habitats.
Natural England stress that partnership working will be crucial to ensure that conditions remain suitable for wintering waterfowl, breeding waders, and other wetland wildlife, as is required by law, without affecting homes and infrastructure, while also sustaining appropriate farming practices and encouraging tourism and reducing flooding and drought and dealing with climate change.
In short, conversations will need to focus upon land being used for several functions and how this could be organised and paid for.
The importance of Somerset Rivers Authority as a partnership, and of Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan as a guiding vision, is that they have enabled those conversations to begin already and bear fruit.
For example, over the last few years the SRA has supported the creation of Moor Associations, voluntary groupings of farmers and landowners who have banded together to enable more effective management of crucial areas such as Westmoor, Tealham and Tadham Moor and most recently Moorlinch (find out more about Moor Associations in the section about Adapting the Levels).
New Moor Associations are in development on Aller Moor and on Sutton Hams near Moorlinch, so that landowners can join in the forthcoming floodwater storage Test and Trial for Defra’s new Environmental Land Management Schemes system, which is being funded by Somerset Rivers Authority.
In March 2021, the SRA Board approved a bid from Natural England for two years’ funding for developing and implementing this Strategic Approach to Mitigation for the SRA.