Calderdale catchment modelling workshop

As part of the Natural Flood Management (NFM) work being undertaken on the Calderdale Flood Action Plan, which iCASP’s Calderdale NFM project is contributing to, three sub-catchments in Calderdale are being modelled to improve understanding of how the current land management impacts upon flooding. On 14 November, Tom Willis held a workshop to explore the … Read more

Tackling flooding; whole catchment approaches

At times when we experience floods, such as those currently devastating people’s homes and businesses in parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, it is very common to see people attempting to distill the problem down to a single cause. In complex hydrological systems there is no sense in taking this simplistic approach; rather the whole … Read more

Sphagnum is a key ingredient of natural flood management

In 2008 Joe Holden and colleagues published research that showed how water running over Sphagnum on blanket peatlands moved much more slowly (often ten times slower) than water running through sedges or bare peat. This spawned a new body of research which has shown how revegetation of peat, particularly if it is possible to get … Read more

Going global with invasive non native species

On 28 October, Dr Alison Dunn, lead academic on iCASP’s Invasive Non Native Species (INNS) project gave a keynote presentation at the International Conference on Aquatic Invasive Species about the growing problem of invasives, and the work she is doing to address this. Because of the growing threat that some invasive species pose to our … Read more

Payment for Outcomes: visiting farms to determine possible sites for Natural Flood Management

iCASP is working on a project to integrate Natural Flood Management (NFM) into the National Trust’s ‘Payment for Outcomes’ trial. The Trust are undertaking the trial on some of their tenanted farms working with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust. Their work will help to inform Defra’s new Environmental Land … Read more

Modelling to support optimal location of flood measures

This October is the 3rd anniversary of the Calderdale Flood Action Plan (FAP) . You can find out more about who is involved with delivering the plan, the various pieces of work being undertaken and get an idea of the costs and the benefits of work already carried out through infographics produced to highlight key … Read more

Working with large land owners

Last week iCASP facilitated a meeting with the National Trust and Water@Leeds to identify future opportunities for collaborative working. The National Trust (NT) are one of the largest land owners in the UK, and around 40% of land in the UK drains into a watercourse which runs through a NT property. The Trust recognises it … Read more

Improving forecasting for surface water flooding

With much of the map of England lit up with flood warnings and alerts this morning, this serves as a timely reminder about the importance of ongoing work into flood forecasting.   The recent iCASP project on Enhanced Surface Water Flood Forecasts (ESWFF) set out to try to enhance the forecasts that are issued to … Read more

August 2019 quarterly bulletin

The latest iCASP quarterly bulletin was published last week. You can read it and find out what we have been up to on the mailchimp website. If you would like future editions sent direct to your inbox please sign up here.