Natural flood management – Nature-based solutions and actions

Join us for an interactive session on Natural Flood Management – Nature-Based Solutions and Actions. This webinar will explore practical strategies you can implement yourself and approaches that work at a community level. Learn how nature-based solutions—such as proven “slow the flow” techniques—can help manage water and reduce flood risk. We’ll move from farm-level actions to catchment-scale approaches, showing how multiple interventions combine to deliver significant collective benefits.

You’ll hear first-hand experiences from two farmers, Debbie Wilkins and Rhys Evans, who’ve successfully integrated NFM on their land, plus insights from Pete Leeson of the Woodland Trust on the wider implications of historic land management and climate change.

Together, we’ll uncover how small steps lead to big change—and what you can do right now to make a difference.

Speakers:

Debbie Wilkins: Debbie farms at Norton Court Farm in the Severn Vale, Gloucestershire, where she’s passionate about regenerative farming and soil health. Debbie manages a mixed enterprise of dairy, beef, and arable, implementing regenerative practices such as grazing dairy cows at longer covers and using rotational systems for youngstock, from mob grazing to paddocks. Debbie is keen on looking at new innovations on farm, and is currently part of an innovate research project looking at using biochar and bokashi compost to have a slurry free dairy. Norton Court farm includes over 100 acres of species-rich floodplain meadows, which led to her part-time role with FWAG on the Flourishing Floodplains project, supporting meadow restoration. Debbie was also a finalist for Soil Farmer of the Year in 2023.

Rhys Evans: Rhys is the Wales Manager at the Nature Friendly Farming Network, where his mission is to demonstrate that food production and nature can, and must, go hand in hand.  Rhys farms with his parents and brother on the family's hill and mountain land in Rhyd-y-main, near Dolgellau, North Wales. The farm runs a flock of Welsh Mountain sheep and pedigree Welsh Black cattle used to manage approximately 700 acres of upland. The farm is currently transitioning to a regenerative farming system, with aspirations to restore species-rich hay meadows and establish a livestock graze and rest regime. Rhys is also actively involved in collaborative projects, such as Ffermwyr yr Wnion, a group of local farms working on natural flood defence, improved biodiversity, and climate action in the Afon Wnion catchment.

Pete Leeson: Pete is an avowed conservationist and tree lover who has worked for the Woodland Trust for over 3 decades and now also runs the Tree Amble podcast. Pete is also an advocate for regenerative approaches to farming and has worked with many farms and commons in Cumbria and the Northwest seeking to bring in measures that work to support farm sustainability, animal welfare and water management. His role brings him into contact with agencies including Natural England and the Environment Agency and he works with the Rivers Trusts and other NGO’s across his patch. 

Living in Cumbria Pete has seen the effects of major floods in 2004, 2009 and 2015 and is very much alive to the threats to lives and livelihoods that flooding brings.