After months of continued hard work by the team of staff and volunteers at The Steel Valley Project real progress is being made on a Natural Flood Management (NFM) scheme taking place in the Stocksbridge and Bradfield area. The impact of this project is now being made apparent. The year long NFM project is a collaboration between Steel Valley Project, Sheffield City Council with £130,000 of funding provided by the Environment Agency (EA) which has seen so far 58 leaky dams installed, 2300 trees planted and 4 ponds created, all of which should contribute to a measured reduction in flooding in the 9 different sites where they have been installed.
Teams of volunteers and staff have worked hard to create the leaky dams and ponds which are made from natural materials that help slow down the flow of water and increase the amount of water that can be stored. Alongside this the 5000 trees planted will, in future also slow water when established by intercepting heavy rainfall and reducing flow further down the valley, potentially reducing flooding risk.
During recent storms such as Storm Babet the combination of these NFM features have stored a large amount of water.
As well as providing flood protection ponds and dams are benefiting local wildlife, creating areas of wetland habitats.
Work on the project continues and will be monitored for several years to measure the NFM impact.
