Exceptional rainfall in spring 2012 caused widespread flooding and damage to agricultural grasslands in Somerset in south western England, much of them farmed under agri‐environment agreements. The seasonal timing of the flood and its relatively long duration (in excess of 4 weeks in some areas) led to a serious loss of grazing and winter feed in 2012. A survey of farmers, combined with the development of a framework to estimate the impact of seasonal flooding, identified the effects on farm businesses and the ways that farmers coped. Impacts on agri‐environment outcomes were valued at the cost of funding stewardship schemes. The methods and estimates can help inform strategies to deal with changes in flood risk in areas of agricultural and environmental interest, whether induced by changes in catchment land use or climate.
Article (refereed) -postprint Stratford, Charlie; Brewin, Phil; Acreman, Mike; Mountford, Owen. 2015. A simple model to quantify the potential trade-off between water level management for ecological benefit and flood risk.Contact CEH NORA team at noraceh@ceh.ac.ukThe NERC and CEH trademarks and logos ('the Trademarks') are registered trademarks of NERC in the UK and other countries, and may not be used without the prior written consent of the Trademark owner.A simple model to quantify the potential trade-off between water level management for ecological benefit and flood risk. AbstractThroughout the world, historic drainage of wetlands has resulted in a reduction in the area of wet habitat and corresponding loss of wetland plant and animal species. In an attempt to reverse this trend, water level management in some drained areas is trying to replicate a more natural 'undrained' state. The resulting hydrological regime is likely to be more suitable to native wetland species; however the raised water levels also represent a potential reduction in flood water storage capacity. Quantifying this reduction is critical if the arguments for and against wetland restoration are to be discussed in a meaningful way. We present a simple model to quantify the hydrological storage capacity of a drainage ditch network under different water level management scenarios.The model was applied to the Somerset Levels and Moors, UK, comparing areas with and without raised water level management. The raised water level areas occupy 11% of the maximum theoretical storage but when put in the context of the recent severe flooding of winter 2013/2014 occupy only 0.6 % of the total flood volume and represent an average increase in flood level of 7 mm. These results indicate that although the raised water level scheme does occupy an appreciable volume of the maximum possible ditch storage, in relation to a large flood event the volume is very small. It therefore seems unlikely that the severity of such large flood events would be significantly reduced if the current water level management for ecological benefit ceased.
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