"The Derwent Partnership brings together people from local communities, landowners, businesses and other organisations to decide how the River Derwent, the rivers and streams flowing into the Derwent and the land adjacent to them can be managed for the interests of wildlife, habitats and people."
Partnership approach (and a
change in name)
The
Partnership is seeking to take an integrated, whole catchment approach to
resolving the environmental issues on the River Derwent. We have changed
the name of the Partnership from the River Derwent Catchment Partnership to the
Yorkshire Derwent Partnership. This helps to distinguish us from other rivers
of the same name, for example in Derbyshire and Cumbria. Building on the twin
foundations of the Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) and natural flood management
as well as earlier work with stakeholders, the Board has agreed the following
objectives for the Partnership:
·
Ecology and Water
Quality – To
improve ecology and water quality within the catchment and to protect
water supplies.
·
Water Level
Management –
To reduce flood risk and increase resilience to drought through better
water level management and a more naturally functioning river system.
·
Habitats and Species – To create, protect, improve and
expand habitats to increase connectivity and protect vulnerable species.
·
Enjoyment and
Education – To
improve the quality of existing public access, understanding and a sense of
connection to the river and surrounding areas, for enjoyment and wellbeing,
without impacting wildlife.
·
Economy – To assist sustainable economic
growth by supporting more resilient and better land management.
Invasive Species – interested in taking action?
In the last update, we asked people to get involved by helping us map the locations of three particular invasive plant species which are a particular issue in the Derwent Catchment: Giant Hogweed, Himalayan Balsam and Japanese Knotweed. This generated a lot of interest and some of you have been in touch to find out what plans there are to tackle Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) across the catchment. Many organisations who work in the catchment and some local community groups already keep their own records of INNS locations and treatment records, but we don’t have a map of this activity across the catchment. We are planning to do some work on this in 2017 so that we have much better evidence of where INNS are located and where it’s being treated. Do you keep records of this in your organisation or for your community group? If the answer is yes, then please get in touch and you could help us collate this information for the catchment as a whole – a crucial first step in planning how we tackle this across the catchment.
Rona Charles has offered to act as co-ordinator for this work within, and around, the Parish.
Are you a land manager
interested in natural flood measures? If so, let us know.
The
Regional Flood and Coastal Committee money will be used to support the
continued running of the partnership and to deliver some catchment-scale
studies and demonstration projects, particularly aimed at promoting natural
flood measures amongst farmers and landowners. This involves working with
natural processes to slow, store and filter water and includes measures such as
woodland planting, off-line storage ponds, non-flood plain wetlands and
washlands. If you are a land manager and would like to explore the potential
for using some of your land for natural flood measures, please get in touch.
Research into Natural Flood Measures (NFM)
The
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) has made available £5m for up to
four major research projects into NFM science and innovation. A team led
by Prof Dan Parsons, Professor of Sedimentology at Hull University, has put in
a bid about scaling connectivity, capacity and conveyance in NFM, which – if
successful - will focus on the Yorkshire Derwent as its primary study
catchment.
For further information look at:
© 2017 www.huttonsambo.com