Oliver Burke and Heather Ball

Improving the River Nene The Nene Valley Nature Improvement Area

Tidal limit, -1m

Northampton

Peterborough

Source, 146m

Navigation

Elevation

Distance

Making space for nature

Nature Improvement

Area components

• Strong existing partnership

• Coherent landscape unit around 50,000ha – already Living

Landscape and Futurescape

• Special Protection Area/Ramsar/SSSI at its heart – much in

unfavourable status or at risk

• Defra Integrated Catchment Management Pilot - Ecological status of

rivers mainly moderate, most water bodies heavily modified

• Growth area – significant development already happening, more

proposed

Why the Nene Valley?

The 12 NIAs

This map is based upon Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office © Crown copyright. Unauthorised reproduction infringes Crown copyright and may lead to prosecution or civil proceedings. Northamptonshire County Council: Licence No. 100019331. Published 13/09/2012.

See inset below for detail

Whittlebury

1. Growth and development will support, value and benefit the natural environment

resulting in a sustainable funding source and delivery of improvements to the

ecological network.

2. Enhance awareness of, access to and benefits from the Nene Valley for growing

local communities in a sustainable and sympathetic way, while ensuring that the

designated sites at the core are brought into/remain in favourable condition.

3. Improve ecological status of the river and enhance ecosystem service provision.

4. Through effective engagement with farmers and landowners maintain, restore and

create BAP habitats and implement sustainable land management practices to

strengthen the ecological network.

5. Investigate the potential to market the ecosystem services provided by the Nene

Valley by developing and trialling tools and models for Payments for Ecosystem

Services.

NIA Objectives

Partnership

• Natural Development Officer

• River Restoration Advisor

• Land Advisor

• Post-Doctoral Researcher

• Project Manager

• Project board and working groups

NIA Project team

Organisation

NIA Project Board

NIA River Restoration

Working Group

NIA Land Advice

Working Group

Catchment

Sensitive Farming

Partnership

Integrated Catchment

Management Plan

• NIA River Restoration Advisor

• NIA Land Advisor

• Environment Agency

• River Restoration Centre

• Wildlife Trust

• River Nene Regional Park

• Peterborough City Council

• Northamptonshire County Council

• Northampton Borough Council

Local Nature

Partnership

2nd River Basin

Management Plan Local Enterprise

Partnerships

Revital-Ise

• Water Framework Directive

– Navigation

– Flood risk management

– Growth

– Agriculture

• Existing projects:

– Catchment Plan

– Backchannels

– CSF

River Restoration – issues & drivers

© Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Northamptonshire County Council: Licence No. 100019331. Published 02/02/2012.

Key issues: diffuse pollution, water abstraction, heavily modified river morphology (navigation and flood

risk management)

Outputs (by March 2015):

• Informing restoration plans for each reach of the River Nene and targeted reaches of its tributaries

• Incorporation of river restoration measures within whole farm plans (link with Land Advisor role)

• 10 projects delivered contributing to achieving ‘Good Ecological Status’.

Outcomes (by March 2015):

• Measures needed to improve 44km of river for invertebrates and 55km for fish included in Nene

Integrated Catchment Management Plan (which will inform 2nd River Basin Management Plan,

2014)

• Measures identified, agreed and included in Nene Integrated Catchment Management Plan (which

will inform 2nd River Basin Management Plan, 2014) to see overall status improvements on 6 water

bodies by 2021.

• Localised improvements in invertebrate assemblages at 10 remediation/enhancement sites within 2

years of work being completed.

Project outline

• Backchannels & backwaters (away from navigation channel)

• Areas with known issues e.g. low flows at Duston, identified through

Urban Studies, backchannels project

• Areas where opportunities (funding/changing land use) may be

available/exist e.g. Urban areas, Enterprise Zone – also likely to be

subject to new or increased pressure or impacts

• Catchment Sensitive Farming is addressing agricultural diffuse

pollution in upper catchment (link to Land Advisor objective)

Prioritisation

Urban Studies

Backchannels

Channel conditions

Restoration options

Restoration options

Restoration options

www.nenevalleynia.org

• Heather Ball, Nene Valley Project Manager

– heather.ball@wildlifebcn.org, 01604 774032

• Oliver Burke, Director of Living Landscapes (NIA Board Chair)

– Oliver.burke@wildlifebcn.org, 01954 713507

• Simon Whitton, River Restoration Advisor

– swhitton@northamptonshire.gov.uk, 07909 863963

rrc@therrc.co.uk 01234 752979 www.therrc.co.uk

Scaling up our Aspirations for River Restoration and

Management

14TH ANNUAL NETWORK CONFERENCE

The RRC would like to thank the sponsors of the RRC Annual Conference 2013 who support discounted places