Our catchment is the area where rain falls that eventually flows into the sea in Southend and Thurrock. We’re doing all sorts of things in the upper, middle and lower areas of the catchment. These will help make our local area more resistant to flooding, erosion and drought. The things we’re doing will also have benefits for wildlife and the natural environment.
Catchment to Coast is working with partners and local people at different sites across Southend and Thurrock to improve resilience to flooding and coastal erosion.
Our catchment is the area where rain falls that eventually flows into the sea in Southend and Thurrock. We’re doing all sorts of things in the upper, middle and lower areas of the catchment. These should help make our local area more resistant to flooding, erosion and drought. The things we’re doing will also have other benefits such as advantages for wildlife and the natural environment.
Our catchment-based approach will also reduce coastal erosion.
The nature-based solutions we’re using – such as leaky dams and water capture schemes – will each generate small benefits. These will combine to produce a greater impact.
All of the things we try will be monitored throughout the project and then evaluated collectively at the end. Evidence gathered will then inform how flooding and coastal erosion are tackled on a national scale.
A catchment-based approach is a way of looking after our rivers and the areas around them. It’s about working together to make sure our water and nature are healthy. In our project, local communities, businesses, and groups are teaming up to take care of the environment. This approach helps us to deal with water challenges and improve our surroundings. Together we can keep our rivers, wildlife, and nature in good shape.
The Catchment Based Approach website has lots more information about this collaborative approach.
Nature-based solutions work with nature to address societal challenges. This means we can benefit both human well-being as well as biodiversity.
In Catchment to Coast, we use nature-based solutions across all of our sites: from creating areas of wet woodland in Belfairs Woods that will help prevent flooding downstream, to extending saltmarsh on Two Tree Island that will slow coastal erosion.
Our area has a close relationship to water. Whether it’s the sea, the streams and rivers, the estuary or the weather, water (or, sometimes, the lack of it) has a big effect on our lives.
Some of those effects are also risks: flooding, droughts and erosion are increasingly problematic.
These risks are interconnected, and through Catchment to Coast we’re trying to alleviate those risks.
Southend and Thurrock are experiencing more frequent floods, resulting from intense rainfall.
Investigations into flooding show that these events are exacerbated by a combination of interconnected factors throughout different parts of the catchment, such as:
When the sewage network is overwhelmed this can cause “outfalls”, where sewage treatment plants can’t process the high amounts of water and have to release some into rivers and streams before it has been properly treated.
Southend and Thurrock also have old coastal landfill rubbish sites which are at high risk from coastal erosion. When eroded, all of the old landfill waste ends up polluting the sea.
These locations rarely qualify for grant funding.
Our area is already one of the driest in Britain. The changing climate means drought will become more of a problem for agriculture and the natural environment.
An increase in the frequency and severity of storms means that our coastline is at a higher risk of damage from erosion. This is an issue for our homes, our infrastructure and also for our natural environment.
