Natural Flood Management (NFM) Lunch & Learn Session Results

Posted on 4 May 2025

Thank you to everyone who attended our Lunch and Learn session last week and sorry to those of you who couldn’t make it, but we hope to see you at our future sessions. This time the focus was on Natural Flood Management (NFM) and we were joined by Aly Maxwell, the Environment Agency’s Wessex NFM Advisor. This was also the main feature of our Flood Warden Spring Newsletter so please do take a look if you haven’t done so already. Please find below and attached the presentation with notes, links, and a checklist to help you navigate more easily online to find the information that is available to support you in your community flood volunteer role. We also recorded part of the session which we will share with you shortly in a separate email.

The topics we covered were:

  • What is NFM and how it works
  • Benefits of NFM
  • Examples of some NFM measures
  • Beavers
  • Wessex NFM Programme 2017-2025

We took some of your questions away as we ran out of time during the session, we have done our best to answer them below.

What’s your view on Contour Ploughing? How do you distinguish between silt from runoff, and silt from erosion or the riverbed and riverbanks?

Contour ploughing is considered best practise on hill slopes.  It can help reduce soil erosion, improves infiltration slows run off  and can increases crop yields.  As a technique it can be challenging on steeper slopes and is more technical than ploughing up and down the slope.

Once silt enters the watercourse system it is difficult to determine the source.  Prior to entering the watercourse, flow paths and silt deposits following rainfall can be traced back to field sources.  Sediment fingerprinting is a technical scientific approach of determining source of sediment (soil) from specific parts of the catchment whether that’s from field, road verges or stream banks.  The Wylye Farmer Cluster Group are using this approach to help identify sediment sources to then target appropriate interventions to reduce or stop soil erosion if from a field.

How do we deal with the issues caused by the live wild release of Beavers and where they will cause flooding/wetlands?

There are several Beaver Management Groups established within Catchment Partnerships in Wessex.  These groups (who do include landowners) are developing Management Plans to help set out appropriate actions if issued are caused but current and future wild beaver populations.  Defra require Management Plans as part of the new wild Beaver release licensing.

How does the EA start the engagement process with landowners/farmers re potential NFM measures?

In practice, most of the time the Environment Agency doesn’t start the engagement process directly but instead we work with partners, and advisors (Defra and non-governmental). We make use of existing and trusted relationships with landowners and land managers.  There are financial incentives through ELM (Environmental Land Management scheme) and specific projects will help support delivery and management of measures. Data and evidence, mapping and raising awareness of catchment characteristics as well as highlighting issues and impacts around flooding will help with the engagement.

Why don’t the local planners take account of NFM and seek EA advice when considering planning applications?

Depending on the type and location of a development, the Environment Agency and lead local flood authority are consulted as part of the planning process. NFM is considered both within the Environment Agency and the Lead Local Flood Authorities from a flood risk management perspective.

How can you ensure a broader view is taken without riparian landowners being encouraged through more awareness and engagement?

For NFM to work at local and catchment scales you need engagement support and agreement from the landowners (and land managers involved).

Supporting Documents:

Your watercourse rights and roles:

Your watercourse: rights and roles | Engage Environment Agency

An upcoming about Funding NFM, hosted by the Thames Regional Flood and Coast Committee and the Natural Environment and Rural Resilience (NERR) Team, will be held on Wednesday 21 May 14:00-15:30. This webinar is intended largely for landowners but is also suitable for practitioners and community representatives as well as anyone interested in ELMs funding. Questions can be asked via the Q&A function, and these will be answered at the end of the webinar. Further details and registration can be found here: https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/ea09607f-e7db-4b9b-9be1-f70adf2ca331@770a2450-0227-4c62-90c7-4e38537f1102.

Future Lunch and Learn Sessions – we have been very pleased with the great attendance and support for these sessions and will be continuing them next year.  If you would like to suggest any particular topic that you would like us to cover, or if you have a story you’d like to share from your community, please email us at 

The next session is a face to face drop in at our Bridgwater (TA6 4YS) and Blandford (DT11 8ST) offices on 5th June 12:30-15:30 as part of National Volunteers Week 2025. If you would like to attend, please let us know by emailing . As usual, we will send an email the week before the session with a reminder. We hope to see you there.