Restoring our Rivers
Programme summary
Many of the rivers and water habitats in our region are currently in poor condition, with challenges such as agricultural runoff, urban pollution, and physical barriers like weirs that interrupt the vital flow of our river ecosystems.
Our work will look at these factors impacting river and water health and develop a collaborative, long term and sustainable approach to healthier rivers and wetlands for today and future generations.
Working at a catchment scale is essential to restore hydrological and ecological connectivity for species. For example, the critically endangered Atlantic Salmon urgently need river restoration if they are to recover and thrive again.
The Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership, working with DEFRA’s Catchment Based Approach, has worked collaboratively with local and regional partners to restore and reconnect water habitats for over a decade. We will build on this to develop and deliver sub-catchment action plans and whole catchment approaches that see improvements at a landscape scale.
We are aligned with the West of England’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy as well as the Bristol Avon Catchment Plan and Fish Recovery Strategy. River Basin Management Plans and Water Framework Directive assessments will also guide our interventions.
On a national scale, river health is a Government priority, with policy reviews and future investment plans expected in the coming year.
There is an urgent need for a focused monitoring programme that complements existing national standards like the Water Framework Directive and the Natural Capital Ecosystem Assessment. Information from monitoring will inform decision-making and support the case for future funding and investment.
We will build on existing monitoring efforts to establish current baselines by collating data, including citizen science contributions, to ensure quality data collection across our river networks, and understanding of improvements through our work. This will form a major strand of our State of Nature reporting effort across the West of England. The RiverHub is a recognised central data repository for ongoing monitoring. This will be expanded to provide crucial insights for developing local plans at a sub-catchment level.
Access to high-quality water-based “blue spaces” offers well-documented health and wellbeing benefits to local communities. The West of England is fortunate in having large populations living near an extensive network of rivers and freshwater habitats. There are many opportunities for public engagement and health and wellbeing benefits from healthier and more accessible water networks across the region.
Our programme is designed to see our rivers and freshwater habitats thriving again, at a landscape scale, with lasting benefits across the region - for nature and for people.
The Programme will:
- Engage with the region’s many different communities and encourage them to become guardians of their local water habitats.
- Develop whole catchment and sub-catchment monitoring that enables better targeting of our actions, while aligning with national reporting requirements
- Deliver strategic projects identified in Fish Recovery Action Plans, such as the completed plan for the Chew Valley and the developing one for the Bristol Frome.
- Advance the Cam & Wellow Catchment Action Plan and begin action planning in other sub-catchments, identifying opportunities for removal and improvements in water quality.
- Expand the Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) Project, developed in West Wiltshire, and co-create joined-up strategies for entire catchments.
- Work with our Severn Shoreline, Levels and Moors programme in North Somerset to build the necessary resources for peatland enhancement – crucial for coastal and climate resilience.
- Provide more accessible andhigh-quality ‘blue spaces’ for all of us to enjoy and benefit from.
Programme area
In this programme, the focus is primarily on freshwater habitats, including rivers, streams, lakes, and wetlands. The map shows key area for the water environment in the West of England Local Nature Recovery Strategy alongside Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership's Key River Catchments.
Many of the rivers and streams that flow through the West of England start their journey in Wiltshire and Somerset and are part of a river network referred to collectively as the Bristol Avon catchment.
Our Severn Shoreline, Levels, and Moors programme addresses the intertidal and coastal elements of water management and we will work together to ensure that our freshwater, estuarine and coastal recovery efforts are aligned and integrated, from source to sea.
Restoring rivers across the West of England is essential for revitalising ecosystems, supporting wildlife, and creating lasting benefits for local communities.
Simon Hunter, Chief Executive Officer, Bristol Avon Rivers Trust
Key measures
Re-naturalisation and habitat restoration
We want to reintroduce natural river features such as “re-wiggling” rivers which have been straightened, removing barriers such as weirs and reconnecting rivers to their floodplains. This will improve habitat diversity, support fish spawning and create wetland habitats, as well as providing vital natural flood management.
River habitat management
Our goal is to plant and maintain bankside trees and scrub habitat, establish buffer strips of vegetation to slow the flow of water and filter pollutants, restore willow pollarding, and manage understory growth allowing dappled light onto the watercourse, to increase its biodiversity. In addition to the clear benefits for nature, these actions will contribute to natural flood management, sequester carbon, and help reduce pollution and soil erosion.
Natural Flood Management
We will use nature-based solutions to alleviate the risks of flooding and drought. This will involve planting trees and hedgerows to intercept water flows, creating swales and ponds to store and redirect surface water and using floodplain ponds to manage floodwater. Our nature-based solutions are also designed to improve water quality, especially in urban areas, by managing rain and urban water systems and aiding the safe diffusion of urban pollution. Improving soil health allows it to soak up more rainwater, as well as preventing soil erosion, which in turn will reduce pollution run-off into our rivers.
Monitoring of the water environment
Enhanced and on-going data collection, monitoring, reporting, and a recognized data repository will be key throughout. These efforts will inform decision-making, supporting the case for future funding and investment, alongside evaluating the efficacy of the programme.
Spotlight on species
The region’s rivers and freshwater habitats are home to several species of national and international conservation importance, many of which are currently at risk due to pollution, habitat loss and barriers to natural water flows. By restoring the natural structure of rivers and creating buffer zones to reduce pollution, we will improve the chances for many important species.
One of our key priorities will be supporting the recovery of Atlantic Salmon and European Eel, two critically endangered species that depend on well-connected river systems for migration and access to upstream spawning grounds, but their routes are often blocked by man-made barriers such as weirs. By removing these barriers and re-naturalising river systems, we will help salmon to return to historic spawning sites, while also improving the conditions for the European Eel, which travels across the world from the Sargasso Sea to the UK’s rivers and estuaries.
Addressing agricultural runoff and urban pollution to improve water quality will also be important for these and other fish species - other migratory fish species such as Sea Lamprey and River Lamprey, also rely on clean, well-oxygenated water and unobstructed rivers. We aim to help these ancient species to recolonise areas from which they have long been absent.
European Beavers and the Otters will also benefit greatly from the restoration of freshwater habitats. Recently arrived in parts of the West of England, beavers are “ecosystem engineers” - building dams and creating wetlands that help restore natural hydrological processes, improving water retention and contributing to flood mitigation, whilst creating diverse habitats for other wildlife. Meanwhile otters, the top predators in our freshwater ecosystems, will benefit from improved availability of both food species and sheltered breeding sites.
A range of bird species depend on freshwater and wetland environments for feeding and breeding. Wading birds like Redshank and Dunlin, will benefit greatly from improved river habitats, water quality and connectivity. Migratory waterfowl such as White-fronted Geese and Bewick’s Swan will also benefit from the expansion of floodplain wetlands and the creation of high-tide roosts, particularly in areas adjacent to the Severn Estuary, as outlined in our Severn Shoreline, Levels and Moors programme.
Invertebrates such as the critically endangered White-clawed Crayfish, which plays a vital ecosystem service by controlling river detritus and supporting the food chain, will benefit as water quality improves and efforts are made to control the invasive Signal crayfish. We will also help create and restore new, clean pond and wetland areas for amphibians such as the Great Crested Newt, which requires clean ponds and wetlands for breeding and has suffered significant habitat loss.
This work will contribute not only to biodiversity gains but also to enhancing the resilience of our freshwater ecosystems to climate change, ensuring that rivers and wetland system remain intact and thriving for both wildlife and people across the West of England.
Why is this a WENP priority?
If we neglect our rivers, the consequences for future generations will be significant.
We rely on our rivers and water environments as a source of water for drinking, agriculture, flood management, energy production, and industry. They also provide vital habitats for wildlife and offer valuable recreational spaces for community health and wellbeing.
Over the past 300 years, the Bristol Avon’s rivers have been progressively constrained by hundreds of weirs and training walls built for navigation and milling. Many kilometres of culverts have been added to facilitate development, with connectivity further disrupted through changes to land use.
Our rivers are also under pressure from human impacts such as urban pollution and agricultural runoff, leading to poor water quality, particularly from excess nutrients but increasingly from emerging pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and microplastics.
As all life depends on freshwater, it is vital that our river and water networks are restored to high quality and are well connected right across our landscapes.
Many specialist species rely entirely on healthy water environments to survive. These include fish such as the vulnerable Atlantic salmon and European eel - and the rare Twaite Shad was even seen in Bristol harbour recently. Many birds and feed on aquatic invertebrates, and a range of bat species and other mammals use river corridors for feeding and navigation. Aquatic plants are also crucial, underpinning the whole ecosystem and providing food for our pollinators.
We must engage with, and inform, legislation around river health. The Government is currently rewriting its Environmental Improvement Plan and the Environment Agency is also reviewing critical data sets that underpin River Basin Management Plans.
Continued engagement with partners and decision-makers will be essential to ensure that investment and restoration priorities are based on the best available evidence, driving collaborative initiatives that benefit both nature and people – for today and for the future.
Delivery readiness
There is already widespread support for therestoration of rivers and freshwater habitats across our region, asdemonstrated by the many established partnerships already working within theBristol Avon catchment:
- Chew Valley Reconnected aims to restore hydrologicalconnectivity, remove physical barriers, and improve water quality to supportspecies like the Atlantic salmon and European eel, whilst fostering localstewardship of water habitats through community engagement.
- River Frome Reconnected also works to reconnectfragmented river habitats, remove barriers to species migration and improvewater quality.
- Somer Valley Rediscovered seeks to enhancebiodiversity, address local environmental pressures and reconnect communitieswith nature by improving access to blue and green spaces.
More detail on current projects can befound on the BACP Online Projects Map.
Case Study:
RiverHub
The River Hub portal is an informative online tool for anyone interested in the health of ourrivers. It provides a centralised source of data from which river improvements can be made, and has been developed through a collaborative effort by the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, Wessex Water, and Riskaware.
Explore the RiverHub Portal.
The RiverHub platform features data collected by volunteers working on citizen scientist programmes with the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, joined more recently with data provided by the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust. Riskaware provides the innovative IT tools needed to review and interpret this data.
The portal allows individuals, community groups, local authorities, and statutory bodies to analyse this data to better understand their local river system’s health. The citizen science data on RiverHub gives a high-level overview of river health, which is blended with Wessex Water data to give a detailed picture of specific river stretches where action may be needed. This provides for an enhanced understanding allowing stakeholders to kickstart the process of planning informed investigations, actions, and investment for river health improvement.
In this way, RiverHub is designed to be an interactive, easy-to-use platform for monitoring watercourse status and planning follow-up actions. The platform can help to identify sites where RiverHealth is of concern, and if an area of concern is noted, this can then be discussed with project partners and stakeholders in regular data review meetings, called to inform the follow-up actions needed. Examples include volunteers using the platform to organise litter picks and invasive species removal to a water company deploying additional sensors to follow-up on reports of elevated nutrient levels in the water.
Access and interpretation of this data can then stimulate investigation and improvements. The public are kept informed of any follow-on actions through the portal's reporting feature, which allows the project stakeholders to share their progress alongside the measurement data.
For more information, contact: info@bristolavonriverstrust.org
Our call for support
We are ready to receive funding for some ‘quick wins’, like those identified in the Chew Fish Recovery Action Plan. Via one-to-one advice and the newly established farm cluster in that sub-catchment, there is significant scope to fund on the ground action such as barrier removal and easement and habitat restoration. The Bristol Frome, the subject of the River Frome Reconnected Partnership, also has some quick wins and is in the process of developing a comprehensive action plan.
Elsewhere in the Bristol Avon Catchment, the priority is building our evidence base in order to inform sub-catchment level action plan development. In collaboration with WENP, the Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership is already spearheading the development of a new monitoring framework for the water environment (part of our State of Nature Monitoring Programme). The BACP, and their partners (many of whom are shared with WENP), need funding for capacity to take this development forward at pace so that investment across all of our sub-catchments can be well targeted.
We also want to expand the offer to farmers and landowners in the region to engage with improvements to the water environment, whether that be through advice provision, cluster facilitation or creating opportunities to participate in new markets for biodiversity, carbon and – potentially – nature-based solutions such as natural flood management.
There is also scope now to fund work with communities to encourage guardians for their local rivers by funding things like school lessons and field trips, for example to teach children about the endangered eels living in their area and taking them out on an eel release.
We are looking for partners to support us on the journey to turn our ambition into reality. Whether you are a landowner, a potential delivery partner, donor, business, community group or something else, please get in touch today to learn how you can support us.
Lead contact: Jack Bishop, Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership
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