Why we need to supercharge nature-based solutions

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By Rebecca Duncan, Media & Events Lead

Aerial view of a water scrape cutting through a field — Aerial view of scrapes installed by River Waveney Trust (Norfolk Rivers Trust)

The Rivers Trust movement has decades of experience in getting boots on the ground – or wellies in the water – to protect, restore, and enhance our water environment. Our people are in their natural habitat when working outdoors, and often that work involves nature-based solutions (NBS).

NBS interventions such as tree planting, wetlands, riparian buffers, or floodplain reconnection help to restore or mimic the natural flow of water through the landscape. At a time when access to both public and private investment is extremely competitive, nature-based solutions - integrated with engineering where appropriate – bring about positive outcomes not just for the environment, but for people too. In reducing the risk of flood and drought, NBS are protecting against the impacts of climate change whilst also contributing to achieving net zero. Their ability to improve water quality and boost biodiversity plays an important part in meeting the requirements of nutrient neutrality and Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) legislation, and they can become a valued community health and wellbeing asset.

That’s why the Rivers Trust is so passionate about advocating for NBS and why our brilliant local Trusts are so committed to implementing them. From 2023 to 2024, our Trusts:

Created or restored 894 hectares of wetlands
Planted 466,990 trees
Installed 1,112 natural flood management (NFM) measures
Created 2313.5 hectares of habitat

This work is both enabled and enhanced by our engagement with more than 3,500 farmers, close to 34,000 schoolchildren, and more than 20,000 other volunteers. You can find out more about our impact over the last year in our recent Impact Report.

All of these often-small-scale measures add together to make a big difference. As the Rivers Trust celebrates its 20th anniversary year in 2024, we are looking back proudly on a long legacy of nature restoration, river improvement and community empowerment. Since our formation in 2004, we have:

Restored 4,024.3km of river
Opened up 4,657.7km of river for fish passage
Erased, passed or removed 884 fish barriers
Engaged with 217,915 volunteers

Large log being used as a dam across a small river — Leaky dam installed by River Waveney Trust (River Waveney Trust)

Here are some case studies demonstrating what this means in practice.

In recent years, few British rivers have received more attention than the River Wye, which has been severely impacted by agricultural pollution. Nutrients used during agricultural processes such as ammonia reach watercourses through road runoff and soil erosion, causing harmful algal blooms and reducing oxygen levels, which in turn harms aquatic wildlife.

The Wye and Usk Foundation have been doing fantastic work to mitigate the effects of agricultural pollution through the development of attenuation ponds in high-risk areas of the river catchment. The ponds intercept drainage water, allowing plants and sunlight to naturally trap nutrients and sediment before reaching the river.

In South Norfolk, the River Waveney Trust has worked with partners on a natural flood management (NFM) scheme. After the village of Gissing experienced terrible flooding in 2020, members of the public approached the Trust about reconnecting a local stream to its historic floodplain. With support from Norfolk Rivers Trust, WWF, Aviva, the Environment Agency, and Essex & Suffolk Water, the team lowered the stream banks in strategic places, as well as installing leaky dams and shallow scrapes to store water in Gissing and the surrounding area upstream of the village. Work was completed in September 2023, shortly before the arrival of Storm Babet and seven other named storms over the course of the winter.

As well as protecting properties from flooding, these measures will store water and release it back into the environment slowly, mitigating the impacts of prolonged dry spells or drought in one of England’s most water-stressed areas.

But our work on NBS now, vitally, extends beyond delivery alone. We also invest our time advocating for an urgent acceleration of NBS.

A 'before' nature based solutions infographic — Nature Based Solutions infographic before (The Rivers Trust)

The Rivers Trust has long championed the integration of nature-based solutions on a landscape-scale and we have the knowledge and skills to make it happen – but we can’t do it alone. A lack of standardised approaches; of coordinated, consistent monitoring; a need for more balanced permitting regimes for the water sector; limited incentives for buyers and sellers of ecosystem services (such as BNG credits); and the absence of a cohesive market framework for NBS means that there is insufficient join-up and the many willing parties are currently struggling to deliver fully integrated solutions at the pace and scale we need.

An 'after' nature based solutions infographic — Nature Based Solutions infographic after (The Rivers Trust)

Aiming to overcome some of the financial barriers to greater uptake of NBS, The Rivers Trust has been involved with a pioneering natural flood management (NFM) pilot project in Lancashire’s Wyre catchment. Between 2020 and 2022, partners from the Wyre NFM Investment Readiness project developed an innovative new financial model, blending public and private finance, which will see multiple beneficiary organisations such as local businesses repaid for their upfront investment in nature-based solutions through the sale of ecosystem services. More than 1,000 separate NBS interventions will take place throughout the catchment over nine years in order to reduce flood risk in the village of Churchtown, with the funds managed by a newly formed Community Interest Company.

The Wyre NFM project was truly the first of its kind and is now being used as a blueprint of how to attract private sector capital to finance Natural Flood Management. We are building on what we learned and innovating with new models of funding in locations across the country in a variety of catchments including the Cumbrian Glendaramackin above Keswick and the Yorkshire Aire upstream of Leeds.

Additionally, we’re ramping up our work through the Ofwat Innovation Fund Mainstreaming Nature-Based Solutions project, which we lead with United Utilities, Jacobs and Mott MacDonald. The aim of the project is to remove the barriers to the adoption of NBS and develop new enabling mechanisms. We think our five priority areas will unlock the opportunity to really embed NBS in land and water management:

Working with regulators and policymakers to enable policy and regulation for NBS
Investment mechanisms for NBS
Standardisation and integration
Making NBS relevant and tangible
Coordination, steer and collaboration at national scale

These conversations and partnerships are finally starting to move the dial on nature-based solutions and make them a mainstream aspect of planning and infrastructure. Now, with a new government taking shape and eager to show leadership on climate and nature, there has never been a better time to join The Rivers Trust on our journey to a more nature-positive future.