Wensum Rural Sediment Tracing Project
Start Jul-2010 End Dec-2021
The Environment Agency (EA) initiated the Rural Sediment Tracing Project in 2009 with the aim of identifying and classifying catchment sources of fine sediment inputs to streams and rivers within 11 priority catchments in rural areas across England. The selected catchments are the top failing salmon catchments in England, where fine sediment is a known problem. The project was funded by Defra and supports the work being undertaken by the EA to achieve the environmental targets set out in the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The project also complements other initiatives being undertaken by the EA, Natural England and other partners to reduce the negative environmental effects of land-use practices in river catchments, such as England Catchment Sensitive Farming Initiative (ECSFI) and the Sediment Matters Project.
This project sets out to identify key point sources of fine sediment in these high-priority catchments by carrying out walkover surveys. The purpose is to help Environment Agency operational staff and partners to demonstrate the scale of the problem and target local effort for dealing with sediment problems and extending this understanding to other impacted water bodies. It also helps to contribute to the evidence base on the scale and magnitude of excessive fine sediment inputs into rivers in England.
However despite having this raft of information and evidence, this mater was left on the shelf for almost 10 years.
See below for related posts from the project
Wensum Sediment Tracing Walkovers Revisit 2020
Wensum Sediment Tracing Walkovers Revisit 2020 Members of the Wensum Working Group, felt so en-sensed that little progress had been made following the significant APEM report of sediment tracing back…
