| Title: |
Peatland Catchments and Natural Flood Management |
| Authors: |
Allott, Tim; Auñón, Jorge; Dunn, Christian; Evans, Martin; Labadz, Jill; Lunt, Paul; MacDonald, Michael; Nisbet, Tom; Owen, Roger; Pilkington, Michael; Proctor, Sarah; Shuttleworth, Emma; Walker, Jonathan |
| Source: |
Allott , T , Auñón , J , Dunn , C , Evans , M , Labadz , J , Lunt , P , MacDonald , M , Nisbet , T , Owen , R , Pilkington , M , Proctor , S , Shuttleworth , E & Walker , J 2019 , Peatland Catchments and Natural Flood Management . |
| Publication Year: |
2019 |
| Description: |
There is increasing interest in the use of Natural Flood Management (NFM) to reduce flood risk for vulnerable communities. NFM seeks to reduce flood risk by restoring or enhancing landscape processes and natural hydrological functions that have been damaged by human activities. Peatlands cover nearly 10% of the UK’s land cover but few of our peatlands are in a near-natural state. Most have been damaged by drainage, air pollution, fire, erosion and other land-use pressures, and the last decade has seen a dramatic increase in the number of projects aiming to restore peatland landscapes. Many communities at risk of flooding have large areas of peatland in their upstream catchments, and it is increasingly common to see claims that peatland restoration can reduce flood risk. This report therefore reviews the evidence that restoration of peatlands can reduce the peak flows of rivers and so contribute meaningfully to NFM. We have good understanding of how storm runoff is generated from peatlands and the changes associated with peat restoration that could contribute to NFM. Restoration may provide increased storage of flood waters in peatland. This is more likely to be associated with restoring surface storage in pools, hollows and depressions than (as is often assumed) through water storage in the peat itself. Any benefits of increased storage would be limited in large rainfall events. Restoration measures can also contribute to NFM by reducing how quickly stormwater moves into river channels (‘slowing the flow’), so delaying and reducing flood peaks. The nature of the peat surface and the ‘roughness’ to stormflow presented by the peatland vegetation cover and vegetation type are key controls on this process. Recent studies have measured or modelled the impacts of different types of peatland restoration on peaks flows in rivers and streams. Some of these have used field monitoring to directly measure change in flood peaks after restoration, but such monitoring is only appropriate in small catchments due to the need to ... |
| Document Type: |
book |
| File Description: |
application/pdf |
| Language: |
English |
| Availability: |
https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchoutputs/peatland-catchments-and-natural-flood-management(a18b7a7b-902c-4dcd-90a8-00a5b0c012e5).html; https://research.bangor.ac.uk/ws/files/27930383/Allott_et_al_2019_IUCN_COI_Peatlands_and_NFM_FULL_REPORT.pdf |
| Rights: |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Accession Number: |
edsbas.31E6B544 |
| Database: |
BASE |