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What is Natural Flood Management?

As the twin crises of climate change and the loss of nature increasingly impact the world around us, we know we must do everything we can to find solutions that will help our communities adapt to increased flooding whilst restoring our ecosystems to their fullest potential. 

Natural Flood Management (NFM) describes the process of restoring the natural function of our river catchments, with the aim of increasing communities' resilience to flooding. Some NFM measures are taken in or next to the river itself, such as leaky dams, reconnecting rivers with their floodplains or even beaver reintroductions. Others operate in the wider river catchment like sustainable soil management or tree planting. Taken together they can reduce and delay flood peaks in communities downstream whilst contributing multiple other benefits including carbon sequestration, biodiversity improvements and cleaner water. Crucially, this makes NFM very good value for money when used in conjunction with traditional engineered flood schemes. 

The diagram below taken from the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England shows how NFM works within the landscape:

 

Illustrated diagram of a river catchment labelled with numbers 1 to 11.

  

  1. In stream structures for example woody debris
  2. Blocking of moorland drainage channels
  3. Woodland planting
  4. Land and soil management practices, cover crops, hedgerows, suitable crops
  5. River morphology and floodplain restoration for example removal of embankments and remeandering
  6. Inland storage ponds and wetlands
  7. Protecting riverbanks for example stock fencing
  8. Sustainable urban drainage systems for example swales, wetlands in urban areas, green roofs, permeable pavements, detention ponds, filter strips
  9. Saltmarsh restoration
  10. Coastal managed realignment
  11. Coastal change management

 

There is a lot of different terminology used when describing NFM and similar types of approaches - from 'Working with Natural Processes' (WwNP) to 'Nature Based Solutions' (NbS) or even 'Blue Green Infrastructure'. We have found the following diagram produced by the Environment Agency useful at showing how NFM fits into this bigger picture, highlighting NFM's primary driver - the reduction of flood risk: 

Stacked Venn diagram; the largest circle is labelled “WwNP: the broad term used for any work that protects, restores and emulates natural processes.”. The middle circle is labelled “NbS: a subset of WwNP, actions to protect, sustainably manage, and restore natural or modified ecosystems, that address societal challenges effectively and adaptively, simultaneously providing human well-being and biodiversity benefits.”. The smallest circle is labelled “NFM: the term given specifically to interventions that are intended to reduce flood risk by using natural techniques.”

National Natural Flood Management Team – Environment Agency

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