River habitat improvements on the Yare, Earlham
Restoring and creating habitat at Earlham Park, Yare Valley
Norfolk Rivers Trust, in partnership with the Environment Agency and Norwich City Council, has completed a much-needed project to restore and improve habitat within the Yare Valley.
The work focused on a stretch of the River Yare that runs through Earlham Park and UEA – a popular site for public river access – and included: reconnecting the river with its floodplain to allow for water to be held in the surrounding grazing meadows; improving morphological diversity with the placement of in-channel woody debris; and using bundles of hazel to repair heavily eroded riverbanks, while providing designated access points to prevent further erosion and reduce the amount of mud entering the river.
A new wetland was also created to store water and filter surface run-off, thus improving the quality of the water before it flows into the river.
