National Trust Riverlands Team - North Devon Wetland Restoration - Devon Water Quality Summit Series

Join James Thomas and Rachel Oates, from The National Trust Riverlands Team, who are working across four portfolios at Arlington Court, West Exmoor, Hartland and Woolacombe and are restoring significant areas of wetland habitat across North Devon. This is being done by identifying areas where drainage and modification of watercourses has had a detrimental impact on the environment and working closely with natural processes to allow the hydrology of the land to function in a more natural way.

Working with partners at a landscape scale, a multitude of opportunities are being explored to maximise gains; from simple measures such as creating new ponds and scrapes to increase open water, strategically blocking land drains and drainage ditches to expand wetland habitat, all the way through to wet woodland creation and floodplain reconnection and resetting the land through innovative ‘stage 0’ style techniques. These measures will all combine to hold water across a wide area for longer, thereby improving water quality, reducing flood risk, acting as carbon storage, improving drought resilience, and boosting opportunities for wildlife increasing abundance and biodiversity.

This is part of the 2026 Water Quality Summit hosted by Devon County Council