Eddleston Water 2021 Report

The Eddleston Water study, now in its 12th year, looks to assess the effectiveness of Natural Flood Management (NFM) to reduce flood risk and improve riparian habitats at a catchment scale. By taking an integrated approach to flood risk and habitat improvement, and through the use of a wide range of NFM measures in locations across the whole catchment, the Eddleston Water project has been able to recreate ‘lost’ hydrological and ecological processes at both the river reach and landscape level. The introduction of these measures has re-connected the river to its catchment both in the headwaters, through large scale riparian tree planting and the introduction of engineered log structures, and on the floodplain where the creation of flood storage ponds, remeandering of once-straightened channels, the removal of adjacent flood embankments and other measures all help temporarily store water and slow the flow. In addition, NFM can be seen to deliver a range of other benefits and ecosystem services and to act as an important climate change adaptation measure.