Water Meadow Restoration

Wetland Design & Construction

Client: Private individual

Autumn 2009

Project outline

An element of the enhancements the clients wanted to make to their land to qualify for HLS funding
was the restoration of medieval water meadows to ensure that they regularly flooded during the
winter and spring. The aim was to encourage waders particularly Snipe to use the fields in the
winter months.

Services Provided

JPR Environmental undertook a topographical, habitat and species survey and wrote a
management plan for the two principal water meadows on the farm. This project focused on the
East Meadows and was designed to create a flow of water around the meadow by clearing the ditch
that lay at the north of the site and restoring and replacing the inlet sluices along the length of the
ditch. To do this a proportion of the hedgerow had to be thinned to allow access and the ditch
scraped by excavator.

We installed one new inlet onto the fields and constructed a dam near the end of the irrigation
systemon the field to retain the water on the field to a certain level. The dam was constructed to
a design that would allow any fish that enters the new system to escape back into the adjoining
river Nadder through the over topping weir.

A new pipe was installed at the beginning of the system to set the high water level mark above
which excess water flowed directly back into the river from the feeder ditch.