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A RESEARCH PRESENTATION Does Natural Flood Management and Rewilding reduce flooding ? Module: Research issues in Environmental Management and Renewable Energy (771743_A22_T1) GROUP 2 OUTLINE INTRODUCTION Flooding is one of the important disasters that affects humans ( C hen et al., 2015). Population increase is a major driving force to more food production (arable and pastoral farming) which also increased pressure on the natural water processes (Marshall et al., 2013 ), hence leads to flooding. Its impact is badly felt in urban cities (Chen et al., 2015), about one billion pounds was lost to flooding in the UK in the year 2015 ( Rentschler and Salhab , 2020). INTRODUCTION Cont’d According to (Daily flash, 2022), the United K ingdom (UK) is among the countries in the world which that is prone to high flooding and currently under a (red alert). Flooding is said to occur in 5 out of 8 stations across the UK in 2022 (Daily F lash, 2022). According to the world water development report (2018), flooding accounts for about 49% of all naturally occurring disasters since 1995 to 2014 (WWD, 2018). INTRODUCTION Cont’d Although , it is possible to predict flooding or areas that are likely to be flooded (Flood risk and coastal change, 2022 ). For instance, Cutter et al. (2013) reported assessment of areas liable to excess flooding through evidences from damages done from pervious flooding and duration of last flood in such areas. INTRODUCTION Cont’d Also, amount of flood spread could also be assessed with the use of GIS and remote sensing information ( chan et al., 2022) A s a result of the damages caused by flooding, the non- structural (natural flood management and rewilding ) has been proved effective in reducing the potentials of flooding to cause harms to human while also conserving biodiversity (Wong et al., 2014) FLOODS TYPES P hoto Credit: (Maddox, 2019) F igure 1: Urban Flood ( F ishlake D oncahter , 2019) Photo Credit : (Maddox, 2019) Figure 2: Pluvial Flood (Coastal and Fluvial , United Kingdom 2007) Photo C redit: ( M addox, 2019) F igure 3: River Flood (Colorado, 2013) Photo Credit: (Maddox, 2019 ) Figure 4: Coastal lood (Jersey Shore, 2012) NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Photo Credit: ( Cumbriacrack , 2019) Natural flood management (NFM) uses natural processes to alter and delay water flowing downstream, thus storing it to benefit biological diversity conservation ( wingfield et al., 2019 ). NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Cont’d Wingfield et al. (2019) also suggested modifications of river channels by increasing its length, thereby decreasing water fall slopes. Lo et al. (2022) also reported construction of leaky woody dams that will be perpendicular to water reduces water flow. NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Cont’d However, Marapara et al. (2021) reported that tree planting could also help to reduce flood peaks up to ten percent in a about 70km square area of land. Moorland restoration could also limit erosion channels to the water bodies, thus reduces sediments in rivers ( Shuttleworth et al., 2019). Also, Chen et al. (2022) suggests using about three percent of agriculture lands as storage reservoirs could reduce flood peaks, hence stored water could be used for irrigation. REWILDING Photo Credit: (Hall, 2016 ) Rewilding can simply be referred to as the recreation of nature (Carver, 2016 ). REWILDING Cont’d Rewilding and flood management Land Management C reation and restoration of wetlands Photo Credit : (Wetland-bird-habitat, 2022) REWILDING Cont’d Peatlands and changes in farming operations (reduced tillage, tree planting) River Restoration Reduces the speed and severity of flood REWILDING Cont’d This consistent with the Pontbern project in mid Wales (2022) where trees were planted across sheep pastures, water infiltration was about 60 times more into the soils than when under pasture (Trust , 2022 ). For river restoration, F orsyth (2016 ) reported two flood impacts in Cumbria, river St John’s Beck and river Liza (under rewilding ), the river not under rewilding suffered massive flooding. EVIDENCES OF SUCCESSFUL NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Tree planting has been confirmed to reduce peak flows by up to 20% during intense rainfall events (Cooper et al., 2021 ). In the United S tates , the national flood insurance program has found that wetland restoration can reduce annual flood damages by up to $632 million yearly (EPA, 2016). EVIDENCES OF SUCCESSFUL NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT Cont’d National Flood Insurance (2022) also reported in South Africa, Mvoti dams project was used as silt traps and tree planting to reduce peak flows up to 50% during storms. Combination of Natural flood management techniques has been proved to be successful in India ( Mohanty , Mudgil and Karmakar , 2020) EVIDENCES OF SUCCESSFUL REWILDING Rewilding through planting of trunks and large tress at the catchment has slowed the flow on water into the Stroud valleys (Stroud Council , 2022). Also, the national trust’s Holnicote project used moorland restoration and mimicking meadows and woody dams to reduce about 10% downstream flooding (Living with change, 2022). However, the Northumberland project incorporated the communities in the flooding areas to reduce water runoff using barriers and ponds, this is cost effective of up to 3.7 million pounds (Proactive - Newcastle University, 2022) DOES NATURAL FLOOD MANAGEMENT AND REWILD REDUCES FLOODING? CONCLUSION The combination of natural flood management (NFM) and rewilding from past experiences reduced flooding in high risk in areas. If coordinated well through standard policies, NFM and R ewilding is considered to be very effective and cheaper. Recommendation The use on integrated management techniques could be a lasting solution to flooding. Since rewilding checks the problem from source, rewilding is strongly recommended to reduce flood. Lastly, it is necessary to constantly review managements option after flooding to know what has been done rightly or wrongly.