ADA discusses bufferstrips for lowland watercourses with Defra

By Ian Moodie MSci, Technical Manager, ADA

On 24 October Defra, Environment Agency and Natural England colleagues met with ADA and the Middle Level Commissioners in the Fens to discuss bufferstrips. The meeting was to investigate the barriers to land managers placing bufferstrip stewardship options next to watercourses managed by risk management authorities, particularly internal drainage boards (IDBs), given their prevalence in lowland landscapes.

The meeting discussed the bankside mowing and bushing work, desilting and aquatic vegetation management works that IDBs undertake to carefully manage water levels, retain water safely, and reduce the risk of flooding within lowland drainage districts. As well as the tracking of machinery and deposition of arisings (silt and aquatic vegetation) on adjacent land associated with this work. We discussed the frequency of each of the above activities in broad terms, and its variability depending on the prioritisation of a watercourse within a lowland pumped catchment.

We covered the legislative rules that IDBs must follow around the deposition of arisings and timing of works, including that depositions must occur within one machine movement, and the best practice that IDBs follow when undertaking drainage channel maintenance. We explained that each IDB enforces bylaws that enable them to access the watercourses that they manage, over widths of around 9 metres either side of the channel. There was a recognition that in addition to benefits to maintaining the conveyance, flow, and capacity of channels within lowland pumped catchments, there are also environmental benefits from watercourse maintenance (e.g. channel depth, habitat, water quality etc.). Furthermore as water management authorities, IDBs strongly favour having bufferstrip options next to watercourses that they manage and maintain, in order to reduce sediment runoff, as long as they are adequately able to continue to carry out their essential maintenance activities within and around the watercourse when necessary.

The previous Good Agricultural & Environmental Conditions (GAEC) under cross compliance rules followed by farmers in receipt of single farm payments required basic bufferstrips to be applied to all watercourses, but also had a straightforward exemption process for where a statutory authority undertook works interfering with a bufferstrip. However, the provisions for IDBs undertaking the maintenance operations described above on bufferstrips under the new Environmental Land Management Scheme (ELMS) are currently less clear and have not been effectively communicated to IDBs. Consequently, there appears to have been a marked reduction in bufferestrips next to lowland watercourses.

The meeting sought to provide evidence as to whether, in order to support a wider take up of bufferstrip options in lowland landscapes, any of the existing options could be modified to incorporate the channel/embankment maintenance needs of IDBs. Alternatively, whether new options for bufferstrips suitable for lowland landscapes could be added to ELMS in future.

We also discussed some potential mitigations around the depth of arisings deposited on grass bufferstrips after different types of channel maintenance works, and where/when and by whom remediation and/or reseeding would be beneficial. We also talked about creating future opportunities for farmers willing to have two stage channels installed by IDBs on watercourses on their land, where these would provide: additional capacity and conveyance, habitat provision, access for maintenance, and reduced risks and consequences from bank slips (See ADA/NE Drainage Channel Biodiversity Manual 2010).

IDBs’ drainage districts cover one tenth of England’s land area, and these are criss-crossed by thousands of kilometres of drainage channels, so there is much to be gained from having effective bufferstrip options within our lowland landscape. It was recognised that if we can get agreement for appropriate IDB maintenance activity being undertaken upon some stewardship bufferstrip options, IDBs can become effective advocates to the farming community for the application of bufferstrips along lowland watercourses in the Fens and beyond, as well as those main rivers routinely managed by the Environment Agency.

Defra officials stated that they will be reporting back in due course on the next steps.

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