SRA Annual Report 2021-22: Adapting the Levels
“Greater resilience to climate and economic change”
One of the aims of Somerset’s 20 Year Flood Action Plan is to facilitate “better management of the most vulnerable and challenging parts of the Somerset Levels, with the consent of owners and occupiers, with the intent of helping them to remain profitable and build greater resilience to climate and economic change.” This ambition has fed into many different parts of the SRA’s work, particularly into Adapting the Levels and two ongoing trials of Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) initiatives being run for Defra.
Background
Somerset Rivers Authority and the EU’s Interreg 2 Seas European Regional Development Fund are funding a major project on the Somerset Levels and Moors called Adapting the Levels. The EU’s funding has not been affected by Brexit: the project runs until March 2023.
The aim of Adapting the Levels is to get local people and organisations co-operating and adapting to the water-related effects of climate change (flooding and drought).
Out on the ground, the project is being led by the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group SouthWest (FWAG SW), Somerset Wildlife Trust and Somerset County Council, with support from the SRA’s Community Engagement team.
Adapting the Levels is part of a larger €7.347 million EU Climate Adaptation initiative called Co- Adapt. Co-Adapt is short for Climate Adaptation through Co-Creation. It involves 12 partners in four countries: Britain, France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Lessons learned are being shared between different countries.
The other two Co-Adapt projects in Britain are both local. They are: Connecting the Culm, which is led by the Blackdown Hills AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) team and covers parts of Somerset and Devon; and Porlock Vale Streams, which is led by the National Trust in West Somerset, and is interwoven with the Trust’s Riverlands initiative. Through Hills to Levels, the SRA has approved funding for more than a dozen Riverlands schemes. Two recent examples include the proposals for the River Aller and Tivington Farm.
Activities in 2021-22
New web-based Adaptation Pathways app for Adapting the Levels
A new app helps Somerset people and organisations turn their ideas into plans for action, particularly as regards flooding and drought. It proffers Adaptation Pathways as a simple way of looking into complex issues, to see how different options interact in changing combinations of circumstance.
Adaptation Pathways are generally used to help organisations across the world plan for climate change. Somerset’s approach is unusual because it allows anyone to contribute, so conversations about future courses of action can be more inclusive.
Adapting the Levels team members worked with parish and town councils, businesses and communities to create draft pathways which can be explored on the Adapting the Levels website, using tablets or desktop computers. People living and working in Somerset are invited to comment on the pathways and add their ideas. Visit https://pathways.adaptingthelevels.com
Subjects covered include reducing the run-off of rainwater from homes and gardens, managing flood risk in Wedmore and Langport, and managing flooding and drought on farmland.
Adapting the Levels’ ultimate ambition is to build up a shared mosaic-like vision for the future of Somerset’s communities and businesses.
New mobile Somerset Trails app
Somerset Trails is a free mobile app that helps people to explore the local impacts of climate change and ways that nature can help Somerset adapt. Launched by local Co- Adapt partners in 2021, the app is funded by Somerset Rivers Authority and the EU’s Interreg 2 Seas programme.
It combines maps for walkers with video-guided tours, and has a Kids Corner for children.
Somerset Trails can be downloaded from the Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store.
The first trail begins in the centre of Wedmore. It incorporates fine views across the Somerset Levels, and takes in meadows, dew ponds and historic ridge and furrow field systems. Videos are triggered at key points when out walking. For younger Wedmore trail followers, 8-year-old tour guide Iona leads the way. She said: “I think people are going to have a lot of fun coming on the walk, and they’re going to learn lots about climate change and what people are doing about it in Somerset.”
A second trail is being planned by the National Trust. This will focus on the Porlock Vale Streams project on Exmoor, with behind-the-scenes footage of re-introduced beavers and details of pioneering river restoration schemes in the Aller and Horner catchments.
Throughout walks, people are invited to add their own thoughts and ideas, so project teams can develop climate adaptation plans with community voices at their heart.
Moor Associations
Moor Associations were encouraged by the SRA in earlier strands of Flood Action Plan work now absorbed into Adapting the Levels. The forerunner in 2018 was the West Moor Futures Group, followed by Tealham and Tadham Moor, Moorlinch, Curry Moor and Aller Moor (Beer Wall to Aller Drove). Other Moor Associations are being developed. The SRA’s goal is to promote flood-resilient farming and good environmental outcomes in flood-prone areas, through greater collaboration between different sectors, chiefly farming, conservation and water management.
Moor Associations make it easier for people to co-operate and get things done. They are set up and run by local farmers and landowners who have agreed to work together for their mutual benefit. On Curry Moor there are 32 landowners (173 fields, 350 hectares), on Aller Moor 37 (140 fields, 285 hectares). Local experience has shown that in areas with fragmented land use, greater collaboration between farmers and a single management structure enables greater collective buying power, more machinery sharing, better grazing arrangements and improved farmland infrastructure.
A Moor Associations Co-ordinator is employed on the Adapting the Levels project through the Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group SouthWest (FWAG SW), along with a Farm Liaison Officer and a part-time Water Management Adviser. Associations get some administrative support from these staff.
Environmental Land Management Schemes (ELMS)
In 2021-22, new Moor Associations were set up on Curry Moor and Aller Moor (Beer Wall to Aller Drove) to allow landowners to participate in a Test and Trial water storage programme for Defra’s new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS). ELMS is due to be Defra’s main land management funding scheme by 2024, focused on the delivery of “public goods for public money”.
The Somerset Levels and Moors are very dependent on public payments, worth around £5 million a year. The phasing out of those payments could have considerable effects on the special characteristics of the Levels and Moors, and the people who make a living from that landscape.
The SRA Board wants to be able to make a case to Defra for continuing public payments for public services such as the seasonal management of flood water. Hence this trial, part-funded by the SRA and supervised by FWAG SW.
Ben Thorne of FWAG SW told the SRA Board in September 2021 that the process was being driven by talking to farmers on the ground who were very keen individually and collaboratively. A trial was due to run between the start of December 2021 and the end of February 2022. However, while October 2021 was very wet, November, December and January had below-average rainfall. This meant no inundation of the areas selected for trial. Farmers will try again this coming winter.
Somerset Levels and Moors peat trial
Somerset Rivers Authority has also agreed to part-fund the running of an ELMS trial of payments for the preservation and restoration of peat in two to four small areas of the Somerset Levels & Moors. The proposed system of payments will be based on a sliding scale of incentives for progressively higher water tables and compatible types of land management. Areas of wet low-lying land are important to the SRA because they can act as a buffer against flooding. Preparations for this exercise were carried out during 2021-22. It is hoped to run a trial this coming winter (2022-23).