Teams from the Environment Agency and Trent Rivers Trust spent yesterday planting over 1,700 trees on farmland near Lambley and Lowdham to help protect the villages from flooding.
The green-fingered team were planting the native trees to support a £1million Natural Flood Management (NFM) scheme. The project aims to use a mixture of oak, alder, cherry and hawthorn trees to naturally slow the flow of surface water in times of flood, reducing the amount of water entering the Cocker Beck.
Work on the ground started in November and will continue across 15 sites upstream of Lowdham.
Measures include constructing ‘leaky’ wooden barriers to help reduce the amount of water that enters the Cocker Beck. The barriers slow and store water within the existing ditch network, reducing the rate it travels to the downstream communities. They will also help to trap sediment to improve water quality downstream.
The project runs until March 2021, with partners from the Environment Agency, Trent Rivers Trust and Nottinghamshire County Council monitoring how effective the NFM features are. It is hoped it will complement a wider flood management scheme in Lowdham.
Environment Agency area flood and coastal risk manager, Paul Lockhart, said: “We’re delighted to have secured a Natural Flood Management scheme with our partners, Trent Rivers Trust and Nottinghamshire County Council. This scheme will allow us to manage flood risk using innovative solutions that are sustainable and cost-effective and, as part of the project, we will be looking at how the measures are contributing to flood risk reduction.”
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