SRA Annual Report 2023-24: Strategic Approach to Mitigation
Natural England – as a partner in the SRA – completed a Strategic Approach to Mitigation for flood risk reduction projects on the Somerset Levels and Moors. The aim of developing this Approach was:
- to 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
The Somerset Levels and Moors are internationally important for wetland wildlife: for breeding birds, wintering birds, invertebrates, grasslands, aquatic plants and ditch dwellers. The area’s status is honoured and protected through numerous designations with legal force, including a Special Protection Area (SPA), Ramsar classification and 12 Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs). The area is also important for food production, tourism, carbon storage – and for holding water during times of flood. The Strategic Approach to Mitigation is intended to ensure that future flood risk schemes firstly do not harm this special area and secondly – where possible – that they contribute to its protection.
Four reports were produced, split into two categories: Condition (Functionally Linked Land, Monitoring Protocol) and Conservation (reviews of Raised Water Level Areas and Water Level Management Plans).
Functionally Linked Land: This means areas of land or sea which are outside the boundaries of designated sites but still critical to the success of those sites. In 2023-24, Natural England finished a report about areas of wet grasslands on floodplains used by wintering birds, to better understand how those birds use the landscape and how better to protect them.
Monitoring Protocol: In 2022-23, Natural England used SRA funding to commission the British Trust for Ornithology to carry out a full assessment of bird of population trends in the Special Protection Area. Subsequently, going into 2023-24, they liaised with partners about setting up a monitoring working group that could design and enact a monitoring protocol. This would use the better knowledge gained through the Approach process to more accurately assess schemes more quickly, better measure impacts and better target any necessary mitigation activities.
Raised Water Level Areas (RWLAs): In 2023-24, Natural England finished a report on possible future alternatives to RWLAs, which are areas of land engineered so that water levels can be held higher than they are in surrounding areas. The point of doing this is to provide better breeding and wintering conditions for waders and wildfowl.
Moorlinch was used as a case study. All of the organisations consulted for this RWLA report (the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium, Somerset Rivers Authority, Somerset Wildlife Trust) agreed that RWLAs could and should be improved.
Water Level Management Plans (WLMPs): WLMPs affect how water is managed across the Somerset Levels and Moors. They were produced quite a few years ago and many changes have occurred since they were written (for example, the King’s Sedgemoor and Aller Moor WLMP dates from July 2010).
Natural England used SRA funding to commission consultants at JBA to work on a possible framework for the updating of WLMPs. In 2023, JBA produced a report exploring why WLMPs need to be updated and offering some suggestions for how. Topics featured include water quality and quantity, nature recovery, peat restoration, and climate change.
As a result of all this work for the SRA, Natural England says it will be able to assess the impacts of flood defence schemes more easily, give stronger advice about necessary mitigation activities and understand better where conservation efforts should be made now to bring benefits in future.