Businesses and homeowners in Keswick and Cockermouth may not realise it yet but work underway high on the fells may well make a big difference when it comes to the frequency of flooding.
The catchment of the River Glenderamackin extends for around142 square kilometres and includes the mountains and river valleys that drain into Keswick, including Mungrisdale, Troutbeck, the Naddle and St Johns in the Vale. The River Glenderamackin and St John’s Beck join to form the River Greta just upstream of Keswick.
Matterdale Common is one of nine sites that is benefitting from a project funded by Natural England to keep water on the common for longer. As well as supporting better water quality and natural flood management, peatlands are said to contain over half of the country’s terrestrial carbon stores and provide a haven for wildlife.
Yet 87% of England’s peatlands are degraded, damaged and dried out, emitting tonnes of carbon dioxide each year. On Matterdale survey work by Cumbria Wildlife Trust in 2022 found that 307 hectares of blanket bog on the site was degraded and needed restoring. While healthy peat stores carbon, damaged peat can emit it. In Cumbria peat stores five times the amount of carbon as all the county’s trees combined.
Over the coming weeks, plugs of sphagnum moss will be planted by hand.
“Many areas lacked those all-important peat-forming sphagnum mosses and there was a lot of erosion in the form of peat hags and flatter areas of bare peat, as well drains that were causing the site to dry out,” Mel Sugden, Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s peatland conservation officer, said. “This all needed to be addressed to stop peat washing into our waterways, to prevent the loss of the carbon stored within the peat and to improve the habitat for wildlife.”
Working with the National Trust and Natural England along with specialist contractors (Ecosulis) adapted diggers have been used to repair erosion by constructing peat and timber dams, sediment traps to control erosion, reprofiling gullies and hags (a marshy hollow) as well as planting peat-forming sphagnum plugs in the areas where it’s been lost.
With an eye on recent floods elsewhere and memories of flooding in Keswick and Cockermouth still recent, how soon before the work pays off?
The hope is it already is; contractors report that previously dry ground is already turning to bog, keeping water on the fells that would otherwise have run off and into the Greta. A system of monitoring the developing bog is also in use on Matterdale as part of the IUCN UK Peatland Programme UK-wide citizen science initiative.
10 digital recording devices planted in the ground on Matterdale record water levels every two hours to chart changes. Called ‘Eyes on the Bog’ a hardy group of volunteers help retrieve the data to record progress.
“You can see some changes instantaneously,” Mel says although it takes a year for just 1mm of peat to form so in other areas the project will take time to pay off.
It has been estimated that there are over 88,000 hectares of peatland soils in Cumbria and a survey undertaken by Cumbria Wildlife Trust found that over 95% of County Wildlife Site wetlands were in poor management condition so work is set to continue for some time yet. Surveying in the summer leads to restoration work from September to March to avoid disturbing wildlife.
The Cumbria Peat Partnership, a group which includes the RSPB, United Utilities and the National Farmers Union, is working to develop best practice and actively support the restoration, stewardship and the long-term future of the wide range of valuable peat habitats in Cumbria.
“Successful delivery of this programme of restoration works will begin a process of large-scale peat recovery, helping to reduce the release of greenhouse gases from the sites,” John Hooson, nature conservation advisor for the National Trust said. “The repaired peat soils will also help hold more water, benefitting specialist bog flora and fauna, and helping to reduce flood-risk downstream.”
