April 2024
Spotlight – River Frome Reconnected
Established in 2018, River Frome Reconnected (RFR) is a partnership project that is committed to delivering improvements to the river and its catchment for the benefit of nature, people, and local communities. The River Frome Reconnected Partnership has a dedicated coordinator helping to join up the programme of work across the Bristol Frome catchment, with the position jointly funded by South Gloucestershire Council and Bristol City Council.
The project aims to make improvements across the following themes:
Adaption and resilience to a changing climate
Responding to and managing flood risk
Reconnecting people and communities
Reconnecting the Frome to nature
RFR supports a programme of coordinated work across the Bristol Frome Catchment and has led and contributed to many successful funding bids. Details on some on the key projects being delivered and developed are included below.
Resilient Frome
The Resilient Frome project is a key part of the RFR partnership, funded by a successful bid to the DEFRA Flood and Coastal resilience innovation programme up to March 2027. It has 6 workstreams aiming to improve flood resilience in both rural and urban areas, delivering multiple benefits across the Bristol Frome catchment. It has already completed a policy challenge review of planning policy in flood risk areas.
In the Frome headwaters, the Resilient Frome is working with local farmers and landowners to deliver a range of Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures, including the installation of run-off storage bunds and building leaky dams. These methods are cost effective and a sustainable way to support flood management, as well as creating important habitat for wildlife. It has also supported farmers through the provision of advice on how best to manage soil, their most valuable asset. Good soil management helps reduce nutrient and sediment loss to watercourses and produces healthier soils which benefit crop productivity.
In the lower sections of the river, the project has also installed hydrometry and telemetry equipment monitoring rainfall, water levels and water flows to help inform operational procedures on the Frome and Avon.
Over the remaining 3 years it is also aimed to:
Retrofit some pilot Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes (SuDS) within schools, industrial sites and highways across the Frome.
Deliver a river enhancement scheme.
Develop an Innovative Funding Mechanism or link with an existing mechanism to engage with private sector funding.
Photo credit: River Frome Reconnected
Friends of the Upper Frome
Co-hosted by Yate Town council and South Gloucestershire Council, the Friends of the Upper Frome was established in November 2022. It aims to empower local action, develop a network of volunteers, and promote awareness about the water environment amongst the local community. Since their formation, the Group has secured funding from the BACP, Wessex Water’s community fund and The Conservation Volunteers, helping to fund safety equipment, as well as training on waterside safety, first aid, and completion of risk assessments. They have been able to put this to good use carrying out river cleans, balsam bashing and community awareness events which will continue this year.
eDNA Investigation
Work with fish barriers
The River Frome Reconnected Partnership continues to work with landowners to try and identify weirs or other obstacles that prove to be barriers to fish passage. Barriers disrupt fish migrations to find sufficient habitats and spawning reaches. In January 2022, the EA modified four of their own flood defence structures to make them passable by fish, opening up around 15km of river to eels and other fish species. Going forwards, much of this work will be supported through the eDNA sampling which help inform key areas to enhance/support.
We look forward to seeing this partnership programme develop further over the coming years and carry on delivering its brilliant work.
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Catchment news
Sustainable solutions for water and nature
Sustainable Solutions for Water and Nature (SSWAN) has recently been launched, an alliance seeking to align economic and environmental regulation and make the urgent changes needed within the water industry.
SSWAN advocates a catchment-based, holistic approach to managing our watercourses, putting the emphasis on nature-based and low carbon solutions to benefit water, nature and society as a whole.
It sets out a vision for a new regulatory approach: one that focuses on the management of water catchments, drives environmental improvement at a national level, takes account of local preferences, circumstances and objectives, and enables all organisations affecting and managing catchments to innovate and accelerate environmental improvement in a cost-effective way.
SSWAN is “facing the challenge head on” and advocates reform by shifting to catchment-based approaches and accurately reflecting local priorities. The new proposed model involves a four-tier regulatory framework: Government, Regulators, Catchment Advisory Boards, and Joint Area Teams.
To read more about SSWAN and the change the positive change they want to bring, visit their website here.
Photo credit: SSWAN
Consultation for the West of England Local Nature Recovery Toolkit
The consultation for the West of England Local Nature Recovery Toolkit is currently live with the opportunity to respond until the 14th May 2024.
The Local Nature Recovery Toolkit is a collaborative effort to empower residents and communities within the West of England Combined Authority area and North Somerset to take action for nature. Whether you're a concerned resident, a farmer, a conservationist, or a policymaker, you'll find valuable resources to support your efforts in restoring and protecting precious natural habitats in your local area and beyond.
The Toolkit sets local priorities for nature recovery and maps ‘focus areas’ where action to help nature will have the biggest impact.
The toolkit forms part of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) for the West of England. For more information about LNRS’s please see here
If you would like to provide feedback on the toolkit respond to the consultation, please find the relevant information at the following links:
Nature Away Day - Festival of Nature
In a collaboration between Natural England and the National Health Service, businesses are being invited to be part of a unique team-building day outdoors during the Festival of Nature this year. The day will connect businesses through Green Social Prescribing, providing help health and wellbeing benefits through a range of outdoor activities.
The day will be held on Tuesday 4th June. To apply, visit the Festival of Nature website here.
River Marden given a blessing
The River Marden, Calne, was thanked in a blessing ceremony on Saturday 9th March. The event was the sixth river blessing organised by the Mayor of Calne, Robert MacNaughton, with the blessing being conducted by the Bishop of Ramsbury and Tara, a water maiden from Stroud.
The event included Japanese drumming, Morris dancing, and a children’s raft race. Mr MacNaughton said that the blessing was a “thank you” to the river, and that it is now “our turn to look after the river”.
Read more on the BBC website here.
Rave on for the Avon
Filmed over two years, a feature-length documentary, directed by Charlotte Sawyer, on the Bristol Avon premiered in Bristol on the 23rd March.
“Rave on for the Avon” follows local communities, with a focus on Conham Bathing Group, along the Bristol Avon and their fight to keep it keep it clean. To find out more about the documentary, visit their website here.
This film delivers a sense of urgency to Bristol City Council about the critical state of the River Avon and how much locals rely on it for their health and wellbeing. It is filmed from a Bristol community perspective, aimed at galvanising audiences to campaign for policy change in the UK and internationally.
Further screening will take place at the Bristol Aquarium on Thursday 25th April, and at Curzon Clevedon on Saturday 4th May.
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Wider News
Natural Flood Management Hub update
The Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) have updated their Natural Flood Management Hub, which includes improved navigation and improved guidance. The tool allows users to map the location and record information that is relevant to any NFM project, regardless of its size, and is based on the Environment Agency's monitoring guidance.
View the Hub on the Catchment Based Approach website here.
Lapwing conservation project in Wiltshire
Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre and Wiltshire Wildlife Trust are carrying out a landscape-scale project to locate, monitor, and conserve the remaining breeding lapwing across Wiltshire chalk landscapes, called Project Peewit. The survey will take place across the North Wessex Downs, Salisbury Plain, and Cranborne Chase.
Six out of every ten lapwings in the UK have disappeared since 1967. The project will help to identify threats that the species faces and can help form a long-term plan to conserve the bird.
Read more about the project on the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust website here.
Photo credit: RSPB
Freshwater Quality Programme
The Champion team, who lead the Nature Environment Research Council (NERC) Freshwater Quality Programme, have published their spring update on the five research projects within the programme.
QUANTUM – Quantifying the combined nutrient enrichment, pathogenic, and ecotoxicological impacts of livestock farming in UK rivers.
Quantum works with scientists, farmers, industry, and regulators to quantify the impacts of livestock farming on our rivers. Livestock excreta has been sampled at six farms over the last autumn/winter; this will be repeated later this year to capture variations across the farming year. These samples are currently being analysed.
As well as this, a field site has been secured for in-stream and field-based cattle experiments to determine the impacts of livestock on the river and environmental controls.
Future plans include experiments involving the collected samples, and further samples being collected at various points across the UK.
Read more about Quantum here.
PACIFIC – Pathways of chemicals into freshwaters and their ecological impacts
Pacific focuses on understanding the link between sources of chemical pollutants and their impacts on freshwater ecosystems.
Progress so far includes a second round of field surveys and sample collections from wastewater treatment works and rivers throughout the Bristol Avon catchment, as well as DNA extracted from weekly samples in eight locations on the River Thames. The new InVEST Nutrient Delivery Ratio model is now being run for four pesticides, and the chemical exposure microcosms system is continually being optimised.
Further plans include DNA sequencing analysis on further samples at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, chemical analysis on samples at the University of Bath, invertebrate and algal analysis at the University of Oxford, chemical-microbial exposure experiments, and the production of an analysis paper focussing on modelled verses measured approaches.
Read more about Pacific here.
To read more about the Freshwater Quality Programme, visit the UK Research and Innovation website here.