The Heggs Castle Cluster, which has a vision to restore natural processes across a combined 200-acre site in Arkengarthdale, has been working with us and the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority with funding support from Two Ridings Community Foundation and Tees Swale: Naturally Connected, to implement a number of demonstration Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures including: tree planting, scrape creation, bund creation and leaky barrier installation.
In summer 2023 we installed 16 shallow ponds (scrapes) by excavating soil and building bunds (earthern walls across the flow of water). The ponds provide a mixture of both permanently wet areas as well as temporary ponds that only fill after rain. These help to manage flood risk by working with nature to 'slow the flow' by holding water back temporarily on the land followed by slow release and infiltration.
