Cherry Holme Wood is located next to Hanson
Aggregates’ sand and gravel extraction site at Barton, close to Burton
upon Trent, and is an established wet woodland adjacent to the River
Trent. At the Leam Valley Local Nature Reserve, a wetland area was
created by the Warwickshire Wildlife Trust in 2000, in the washlands of
the River Avon at Leamington Spa. Here, reduced level excavation
created a mosaic of wetland habitats including: open water; reedbed;
marsh; wet grassland; and wet woodland.
At Cherry Holme 5-year old willow (Salix caprea) trees were
transplanted into the lysimeters and the understorey turves were
reinstated. At Leam Valley 3-year old Salix caprea were purchased as
bare-root stock and planted in the lysimeters. Understorey vegetation
was established using turves from the adjacent terrestrial woodland and
plug planting of target species. Cherry Holme therefore is
representative of a mature wet woodland habitat with a developed
canopy, whilst the Leam Valley lysimeters allow the progress of a
developing wet woodland to be monitored.
In spring 2004, one of the Salix caprea at Cherry Holme was
coppiced, whilst at Leam Valley one of the Salix was cut down in favour
of an alder (Alnus glutinosa), that had established itself during the
understorey planting.
HEDGES P D and BARBER H
Biodiversity loss is increasingly moving up the business and
political agenda and is seen as being an integral part of sustainable
development. Developers invariably have an impact on biodiversity
through their activities in creating infrastructure within the
landscape. The EEC Directives, 85/337/EEC and 97/11/EC, require ‘flora
and fauna’ to be considered when assessing the future environmental
impacts of development projects. The Town and Country Planning Act 1990
gives Local Authorities responsibility for ‘nature conservation’, with
planning policy guidance given in PPG9 for England, and similar
documents for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
This, together with allied legislation, policies and guidance,
ensures that biodiversity considerations must be incorporated into all
stages of a project’s life cycle, from concept, feasibility and design,
through the permitting and construction phases, into operation and
management, closure and restoration. The complex and dynamic nature of
ecological systems imposes particular difficulties for the
implementation of these requirements.
Middlemarch Environmental’s experiences have highlighted the
conflict that can arise between the Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP)
prepared for the EIA and planning process, and the implementation in a
practical, on site development scenario. It has been found that the BAP
reflected the baseline conditions delivered for the ES, rather than
meeting the long term changes necessary for the creation of the
infrastructure development.
The research project will employ a case study approach, engaging
with organisations involved in the development process (eg. property
developers, construction companies and the minerals extraction
industry), to gain an understanding of current good practice. This work
will focus particularly on:
- finding ways to mitigate the conflict between meeting planning and other legislative criteria;
- the complexity of enabling successful ecological works at the
implementation stage due to seasonality/design modifications/lack of
appropriate skills and contract variations;
- appropriate flexible mechanisms required for project
management, together with the understanding necessary on the part of
the project manager;
- mechanisms for ongoing biodiversity management and enhancement during a project’s operation phase.
The case study findings will be analysed, and best practice
will be distilled from this. The outcome of the research project will
be a series of protocols and guidance notes, which together will
provide a methodology defining the continuity of the process necessary
to ensure that biodiversity is successfully maximised throughout the
life of a project. The methodology developed from this research project
will allow companies not only to meet their regulatory obligations, but
also to successfully incorporate biodiversity throughout the
development process, thereby allowing them to contribute more
effectively to biodiversity conservation both nationally and
internationally.
Initially, the suitability of selected wetland flora will be
evaluated through a series of trial plantings under controlled
conditions. To achieve this, replicate plantings will be fed solutions
of varying concentrations of chemicals selected to simulate wastewater
treatment effluent, to ascertain their likely robustness under field
conditions.
Following the outcome of these trials, experimental plots will be
established within working reedbed systems, to assess the suitability
of the selected plants together with the biodiversity enhancement that
can be achieved.
They have had and still have important uses in the
past, e.g. alder coppices for stakes, poplar woodlands for the
matchsticks and bobbin industries, and potentially have future uses,
e.g. willow for biofuel, flood reduction, soil stabilisation on banks,
water and sewage filtratration/purification.
Various environmental policies recognise that native woodlands
are an irreplaceable resource, particularly for biodiversity and as
part of the landscape. As a result the guidelines require and/or state
that ecological knowledge and understanding of woodland systems is
necessary in order for the polices to be implemented. A common theme
through these environmental polices and guidelines and the uses of wet
woodlands is restoration and sustainable or biodiversity management. In
order to achieve these objectives, there needs to be knowledge of how
the wet woodland ecosystem functions, how biodiversity responds to
management or otherwise and a method of monitoring change.
The aim of this project is, therefore, to assess the
biodiversity of wet woodlands in response to different management
practices. This assessment should result in the development of a
methodology for predicting the outcome of management practices to
obtain an optimum degree of biodiversity in a given situation.
HEDGES P D and HILDRETH J M
The
incorporation of the biodiversity of company landholdings within
environmental management systems (EMS) in the UK is limited. Although
over 3,000 companies have so far been accredited to ISO14001 the UK,
there are very few examples where biodiversity issues have been
formally linked to the EMS.
However, with increasing pressures on organisations for
greater transparency and corporate social responsibility, one strand of
which is environmental stewardship, the need for a framework to enable
the incorporation of biodiversity within EMS will grow. Calow during
the course of his research, Implementing Biodiversity Action Plans
Within Environmental Management Systems, developed the Wildlife Trust's
Biodiversity Benchmark. The Benchmark provides this framework, but does
not meet the concerns of many of the organisations that collaborated in
his research, regarding the establishment of indicators to facilitate
the measurement and monitoring of biodiversity performance
This project has been designed to fill this gap, and will develop a
methodology to enable companies to identify, quantify and monitor
biodiversity and report progress of Biodiversity Action Plans within
environmental management systems. This will involve indicators
appropriate to all levels of an EMS - management level, site level and
measures of ecological condition.
These organisations all operate a company Biodiversity Action Plan with
a commitment to address supply chain biodiversity impacts by working
with their supply chain companies. Supply chain companies (which are
often SMEs) will be selected from the collaborating organisations and a
number of biodiversity measures will be selected from a literature
review.
The experimental stage of the research will involve the
implementation of techniques at each company in order to collect
biodiversity data. This data will be analysed to establish successful
approaches and a method for incorporating the biodiversity measures
within the Environmental Management Systems of the collaborating
organisations will be developed. The proposed methodology will be
tested at a number of companies in order to establish its viability.
The methodology developed from the proposed research project
will allow companies to measure the biodiversity impact of their supply
chain companies thus allowing them to contribute more effectively to
biodiversity conservation both nationally and internationally. In
addition, the technique will encourage an Environmental Management
System incorporating biodiversity issues, at both the collaborating
organisation and its suppliers.
HEDGES P D, and GASKIN J
Once
common and widespread, water voles Arvicola terrestris have suffered a
significant drop in numbers and distribution since the 1960’s. This
decline accelerated during the 1980’s and 1990’s due to changes in land
use and riparian habitat management which has resulted in habitat loss,
fragmentation and degradation. This habitat loss has increase water
voles’ vulnerability to predators, especially mink Mustela vison, whose
population has increased.
The water vole was therefore chosen as a species for the UK
Biodiversity Action Plan following the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Convention
on Biodiversity. The action plan called to restore water voles to their
former widespread distribution by 2010.
The research programme will include the following stages.
- Hydro-ecological surveys at prior water vole habitat
creation works to provide baseline data. Existing plant species
composition and vegetation structure will be assessed and particular
attention will be paid to gathering soil/ substrate data and
information on water level fluctuations as the function of these
variables determines the ability of water voles to burrow or create
above ground predator proof nests.
- Research will be
conducted to identify opportunities to encourage riparian habitats such
as planting schemes with water vole food plants, determining vegetation
establishment mechanisms, and changing the hydrological characteristics
of the sites in order to encourage water vole colonisation. The
research will involve experimental design and tested habitat
manipulation works at selected sites in order to determine best
practice. It is anticipated that some test sites will be adjacent to
extant water vole populations in order to facilitate the assessment of
experimental habitat manipulations on water vole colonisation.
Opportunities for the release of captive bred animals will be
considered as part of the works to determine habitat suitability,
within the framework of a wider species recovery programme. Mink
management may need to be carried out ahead of experimental works in
order for their potential impact to be negated.
- Vegetation
establishment techniques will be implemented at test sites and a
monitoring programme will be developed to assess changes against the
baseline hydro-ecological variables with water vole colonisation. This
data can be used to determine the optimum hydro-ecological
characteristics for vegetation establishment within created water vole
habitat. In addition, it is anticipated that the project data can be
used to inform the selection of sites that are suitable for
re-establishing vegetation suitable for populations of water voles and
for restoration schemes that aim to increase water vole populations.
HEDGES P D and IRELAND SSeveral establishment methodologies (detailed in the Table below) are
utilised in current practice. This project aims to provide
quantification of the establishment techniques for various wetland
habitats through a survey of practitioners, a review of literature and
fieldwork.
| Establishment Technique |
Reedbed |
Sedge Bed |
Wet Woodland Groundcover |
| Natural colonisation/regeneration |
|
x |
x |
| Seeding |
x |
x |
x |
| Plug planting |
x |
x |
x |
| Rhizome/turf/soil translocation |
x |
x |
x |
| Rhizome fragment translocation |
x |
|
|
| Stem cuttings |
x |
|
|
| Interstitial cuttings |
x |
|
|
To investigate a variety of these establishment techniques two
field sites have been established – at the Leam Valley LNR, and at the
Burton Centenary Woodland. The main focus of study at these sites is
wet woodland groundcover, since there is a death of relevant
information and experience with regard to this habitat.
To provide guidance for designers of wetland creation schemes
a cost/benefit analysis of the various establishment techniques will be
undertaken utilising the data gathered from the experimental sites. The
costs for each technique studied will be compared with vegetation
establishment success rates, which will be determined through regular
monitoring of on site trial plots.
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