Natural Flood Management
NFM like most softer engineering solutions represents a far broader scope of availability, design, delivery, and locations. It is suitable for installation across a huge range of landscapes and forms the basis for collective strategies seeking to slow the flow of rain waters. It is often the case that this type of installation is cheaper to design and deliver and thus makes it an extremely attractive option for those seeking flood management opportunities. Combined with financial incentives from government schemes storage of water on land is becoming a way of utilising otherwise unproductive land, whilst also taking greater responsibility for the environments that we inhabit.
NFM can take the form of complex systems of upland gulley stuffing and channel redirection, to woody debris and in-channel alterations that may look to reintroduce previously lost meander and begin the reconnection of watercourses to the floodplains. Being that the processes are largely sought to replicate or kick start natural processes that may have been lost due to industry or development, the outcomes can be low-maintenance and generally easy to control. For those situations where this is not the case, the Board is happy to offer a management service to those outside of the district over an agreed period for a nominal figure. It would also be interested in how it might offer further financial incentive by reducing rates to those that offer their land as part of this defence.