River habitat improvements on the Yare, Earlham

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.