Restoring London’s rivers and delivering river basin management plans: A catchment approach
We were thrilled to hold a collaborative ‘Lunch and Learn’ session with the River Restoration Centre (RRC) recently on ‘a catchment approach to restoring London’s rivers’.
A catchment approach to managing rivers looks at the catchment holistically, rather than a disjointed, piecemeal approach.
During the Lunch and Learn session, Thames21’s River Restoration Manager, Carolina Pinto, shared learnings on restoring urban catchments, explored the scaling up community involvement in restoring catchments and delivering natural flood management and the exploration of biodiversity net gain, among other things.
A case study highlighted within the presentation was our collaborative ‘Rewilding the Rom’ project with Barking and Dagenham Council. This award-winning initiative paved the way for the construction of a wetland, connecting it to the River Rom in East London.
The Lunch and Learn session was hosted by the Environment Agency and chaired by Martin Janes, Director of the RRC.
Commenting on the session, Carolina Pinto said: “A fantastic session and opportunity for Thames21 to share experiences in restoring urban catchments in London. We talked about community involvement efforts and successful outcomes from London Rivers Week. I had the pleasure of presenting and having a discussion with a highly engaged audience of 74 participants. The follow-up actions may greatly integrate our initiatives. A huge thanks to everyone who engaged in this session.”
“Thank you to staff from Natural Resources Wales, Defra, Natural England and the EA for joining and being so proactive, Carolina for her story and Martin Janes RRC for chairing. We hope you take some of the learning/best practice and apply this to support your partnerships and measures delivery,” added Dom Martyn EA National Environment & Business, River Basin Management Services Team, IRBCP leads network facilitator.
For more information on the session, please click link here.