Rewild the landscape to absorb storm waters | Letters

The floods in the north of England are a tragedy. More so, as your editorial (28 December) suggests, because of the government's lacklustre approach to flood management, which is proving increasingly inadequate in the face of climate change. It is indeed time for a Delta plan as radical as the Dutch response to the 1953 North Sea storm surge (Opinion, 28 December). But a growing number of hydrologists and ecologists now argue that this doesn't necessarily mean big engineering to hurry flood waters away downstream. Rather we should allow nature a freer hand to slow flood waters upstream of urban areas. In the north of England this might mean devoting less of our upland landscape to grouse shooting and sheep farming, and more to replanted native woodlands and reintroduced keystone species, such as beavers.

Burning heather moorlands for grouse shooting, which has increased markedly in the catchments of the Ouse and its tributaries over the past two decades, degrades the landscape's ability to absorb rainwater. In contrast, wooded uplands, with watercourses slowed by beaver dams (once common in Yorkshire) absorb storm waters and release them slowly. The choice we face now is between shoring up an ever more industrialised and degraded landscape or working to restore a wilder, healthier landscape more resilient to foods and other climatic extremes.
Dr Ewan Wakefield
Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, University of Glasgow