How forgotten streams near Hull are being restored to help a globally rare eco-system

Its publication marks the one-year anniversary of the launch of CaBA’s Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy, which set out over 30 recommendations to restore good ecological health to chalk streams and the landscapes which support them.

England is home to 85 per cent of the world’s chalk streams – rivers that rise from springs in landscapes with chalk bedrock. Water in these streams contains little organic matter and sediment and is generally very clear.

They are the most biodiverse of all English rivers and a vitally important habitat for distinct flora and fauna communities, including water-crowfoot plants, Atlantic salmon and brown trout, native crayfish, and mayfly.

Most of England’s chalk streams flow through landscapes heavily impacted by agriculture and urban development and are threatened by water abstraction, sewage pollution, farming, and roads, by invasive species, and habitat degradation.

Chair of the Chalk Stream Restoration Group, Charles Rangeley-Wilson, said: “England’s chalk streams are under intense pressure: they flow through the most urbanised, industrialised and intensely farmed parts of the UK. They need and deserve urgent attention.

“Our Implementation Plan represents a step-change in the collaborative approach that regulators, industry, NGOs and independent stakeholders are taking to protect these special chalk streams and create a better natural environment.”

The plan highlights recommendations for helping preserve and protect the chalk streams from Dorset to Yorkshire.

Some of them nationwide include £2.8m of Environment Agency funding to help deliver on the Chalk Streams Restoration Strategy, which will secure extra staff and help fund partnership projects on chalk streams across the country; successful mapping by Natural England of all the chalk streams across England; defining chalk streams as priority sites in the government’s Storm Overflows Discharge Reduction Plan with a target of 75 per cent reduction in harmful sewage spills by 2035.

Yorkshire boasts the most northerly chalk streams in Britain and some of the most northerly in Europe – Gypsey Race, Settrington Beck and Kelk Beck. In recognition of these internationally important habitats the Environment Agency is working with partners to restore, enhance and protect them for future generations.

Schemes to date include a £90,000 collaborative project on the Gypsey Race, which is the UK’s most northerly chalk stream and winds its way from Duggleby to Bridlington, which will help reduce pollution and bring a boost to wildlife. New ponds have been created that will collect the run off of water from the land, reducing the amount of silt and nutrients entering the water while also creating 140m of habitat in the river floodplain.

Trials are also taking place to understand the most effective and sustainable ways to reduce farming impacts on the Gypsey Race and groundwater in the chalk under the fields. The environmental benefits of these project will be monitored through the next year.

A further £130,000 of partnership funding has created and restored habitat in a chalk stream in the River Hull Headwaters which is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The stream has been straightened and modified in the past, but several of the old meanders remained in the fields. Two of the meanders have been restored and reconnected to the original watercourse, creating around 140m of re-naturalised chalk stream.

Amanda Foster, Environment Agency Catchment Co-ordinator involved in these projects, said:  “Chalk is a defining feature of the landscape and underlies a huge area of East Yorkshire. The crystal clear springs and chalk river systems they support are globally rare habitats, providing rich and diverse biodiversity and are a vital resource for local communities and beyond.  

“Collaboration is at the heart of what we are doing, working together with partners to enhance and protect Yorkshire’s chalk streams. This new Implementation Plan will support projects that are already underway, help provide direction, address chalk stream pressures and secure funding to continue to drive forward this vital work.”

The need to understand climate change impacts is highlighted in a collaborative research report on chalk streams from Nottingham Trent University and the Environment Agency.