Modelling the effectiveness of land‐based natural flood management in a large, permeable catchment

Abstract

In the United Kingdom, woodland planting and soil and crop management are being promoted as approaches to tackling flooding. Although evidence is limited, it is thought tree planting and regenerative agriculture practices such as crop-herbal ley pasture rotations increase infiltration, soil water storage and evapotranspiration, potentially reducing flooding. A process-based soil-watervegetation model was coupled with a semi-distributed groundwater model to explore the impact of these interventions on peak and low flows in a large, groundwater-dominated catchment. Land use change and management were found to have limited potential to reduce flooding in this setting. Herbal leycrop rotations produced a <1% reduction in flow for return periods >2 years, and levels of woodland planting judged to be the realistic maximum produced reductions of 0.2%-2.6%, depending on tree species. Broadscale spruce planting was the only scenario to produce significant reductions in peak flow (16.0%-24.7% at return periods 1-15 years); however, the level of spruce planting required to achieve these reductions was estimated to reduce Q95 flow by $39%, which would likely have negative implications for water security and ecological river flows. The impact of land-based natural flood management interventions for flood prevention in large, permeable catchments should not be overstated.

The growing strength of the ‘Journal of Flood Risk Management’ community

“…Finally, in this issue, Collins et al (2023) consider natural flood management and strongly conclude that these sorts of natural interventions in large permeable catchments should be considered further. Sharpe et al (2023) focus on the impact of riparian forests on hydraulic roughness, looking at the reliability of roughness coefficients.…”