Natural Flood Management in the Thames Basin: Building Evidence for What Will and Will Not Work

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter is written primarily for those planning to implement, or wanting to evaluate the effectiveness of, natural flood management (NFM) interventions. To support evidence-based decision making, we describe applications of a range of spatial Policy Support Systems as well as the Eco:Actuary Investment Planner, which focuses on understanding the investment costs associated with different types and magnitudes of NFM. We also outline deployment of //Smart: monitoring equipment to evaluate existing NFM interventions. We focused on three types of NFM intervention – leaky debris dams, retention ponds and regenerative agriculture, all of which are deployed in the Thames Basin of the United Kingdom. In 2017, the UK government encouraged and funded NFM projects by community groups and local councils. This funding came with an obligation to monitor how well the interventions worked. However many organisations lacked the technical and/or financial capacity to undertake this monitoring within the financial constraints of the grant (most projects were <50 K GBP). Responding to this need, we developed novel, low-cost decision support tools, monitoring equipment and protocols which are described in Chap. 4. Here, in Chap. 12 we apply two of these tools: the Eco:Actuary Investment Planner and the FreeStation low-cost monitoring systems, in projects throughout the Thames Basin.