Plant Trees To Fight Floods

Planting trees around rivers could reduce the height of flooding by up to 20%, a new research has claimed.

16:48 16 March 2016

A study for the Environment Agency has found that planting trees around rivers can reduce the height of flooding and save more properties from getting damaged.

 

There has been a rush of interest in natural methods such as creating leaky dams to slow the rush of rainwater. However, the report – from the universities of Birmingham and Southampton – warned that not all natural flood prevention methods will work. The authors said that the most successful natural methods are those on a much larger scale than currently in operation. They suggested taking a tributary stream to a main river and then planting several trees around it.

 

Simon Dixon from Birmingham University Institute for Forest Research said: "Where its possible to do more extensive planting than we're doing we really need to do it. It's a bit of a no-brainer."

 

"What's identified is opportunity for bigger impact with more strategic catchment but we have to be mindful of the possibility that if it's not done well it could make matters worse.

 

"To make the scale of changes to help a big city like Leeds for Manchester - that's a scale of ambition that would take sometime to come to pass."