From Clarkson's Farm to Yorkshire: Natural flood management entering the mainstream

From Clarkson's Farm to Yorkshire: how natural flood management is entering the mainstream

DAM PLAN: Jeremy Clarkson points out where he wants to ‘slow the flow’ as farm adviser “Cheerful” Charlie Ireland, left, explains the rules and Kaleb Cooper looks on.

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Natural flood management is rarely the subject of mainstream television.

Yet in the latest series of Clarkson's Farm, Jeremy Clarkson introduces millions of viewers to the idea of slowing the flow of water through the landscape, a concept also being explored through projects such as Ousewem in York and North Yorkshire.

The Doncaster-born star puts the spotlight on a Government grant encouraging farmers like him to create large, leaky, wooden dams — designed to slow water upstream and help reduce flood risk downstream.

He describes himself as being paid to become a "human beaver".

WATCH: The leaky woody dam features in Series 5, Episode 6,Frazzling, of* Clarkson’s Farm*. The series is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video -click here.

BEAVERING AWAY: Clarkson brings in the heavy machinery to clear vegetation around the stream as work on his ‘slow the flow’ project gets under way.

The thinking behind it is very real — it mirrors natural flood management (NFM) being explored through a York and North Yorkshire flood resilience programme, called Ousewem, which works with farmers and other landowners across the River Ouse catchment.

Across York and North Yorkshire, Ousewem is helping explore how natural flood management can contribute to flood resilience at catchment scale. Leaky woody dams are one example, alongside ponds, wetlands, floodplain restoration, woodland creation and more. By combining modelling, evidence and practical delivery, the programme is helping land managers and decision-makers understand how different approaches can be applied in different places, alongside wider flood resilience measures.

Ousewem, a City of York Council-led partnership, has received funding through Defra’s £200m Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme, bringing together councils, researchers, environmental organisations, farmers and landowners.

Clarkson’s approach makes for entertaining but educational television. And he manages to explain the basic principle behind NFM to millions of TV viewers in a matter of seconds.

Through Clarkson’s Farm, the former Top Gear and The Grand Tour star has already introduced a huge mainstream audience to the realities facing British farmers — from food production, costs and weather to planning, regulation and the increasingly unpredictable challenges of working the land.

HUMAN BEAVERS: Jeremy Clarkson and Kaleb Cooper get to work building a leaky woody dam at Diddly Squat Farm, designed to slow water on its journey downstream.

Now he has brought the concept of 'slowing the flow' to a prime-time audience that might not otherwise encounter flood resilience discussions.

The idea may be simple to explain but putting it into practice proves more complicated.

After making a start, with the help of farming wing-man Kaleb Cooper, they are told by farm adviser “Cheerful” Charlie Ireland how they should have got permission first.

It’s an inevitable paperwork-shaped bucket of cold water poured over Clarkson’s hard work. But it's timely advice to other farmers about how to go about the job properly.

CLAIM THE GRANT: Farmers and other landowners can find out if they are eligible and how to apply for the RP33 Large Leaky Woody Dams grant, currently paying £764.42 per dam - should visit the Government website - CLICK HERE.

DAM DEAL: The Government grant which caught Clarkson’s eye pays £764.42 for each qualifying large leaky woody dam — provided, as he discovered, you follow the rules first.

Clarkson, the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host has added his considerable voice to the big question: could working with farmers and nature to slow water higher up our river catchments contribute to making communities downstream more resilient to flooding?

In episode six, Frazzling, Clarkson quickly boils the idea down to its essentials.

He tells Kaleb: “They pay us to slow the water down. They’re thinking we’ll be like human beavers. Beavers don't make completely watertight Hoover dams, do they?”

Kaleb replies: “No, they just slow the water down.”

“They just slow the water down,” Clarkson agrees.

DAM BUSTRR: Jeremy Clarkson discovers from farm adviser “Cheerful” Charlie Ireland that there’s one snag in his £764.42-a-dam plan — he needs permission first

The concept is simple. Unlike a conventional dam, the woody structures remain permeable, allowing water to continue downstream but slowing its passage and temporarily holding more of it further up the catchment.

Clarkson reads out the purpose of the measure: “It helps delay the passage of floodwater downstream, allows sediment to settle out and reduces downstream flood risk.”

Naturally, his thoughts then turn rather rapidly from environmental management to farm finances.

“Let's go and do it!” he declares, before calculating what ten dams might bring in.

SLOWLY DOES IT: Jeremy Clarkson takes a look at the leaky woody dam — part of his attempt to slow the flow at Diddly Squat Farm.

Exploring the opportunity at one of the streams on his Diddly Squat farm, Clarkson says: “So all this flotsam is gonna wash away and jam up in that beavery type dam there, and that's creating a slow-moving bit which is what you want to try and achieve.”

Behind the machinery, jokes and inevitable chaos, the programme has done something significant.

It has taken phrases such as Natural Flood Management, leaky woody dams, catchment management and downstream flood risk — language more often encountered in Government documents, research papers and flood resilience meetings — and translated them into something the general public can immediately picture.

SLOW THE FLOW: The leaky woody dam takes shape at Diddly Squat.

Put some strategically placed wood into a watercourse. Don’t stop the water. Slow it down. Hold some of it upstream for longer.

And that provides a powerful bridge back to the work being explored through Ousewem in Yorkshire, where leaky barriers are only one part of a much wider NFM toolbox that can also include ponds, wetlands, woodland, river restoration and reconnecting watercourses with their floodplains.

Clarkson, loud, opinionated and not always universally popular, may have approached it with thoughts of £764.42 a dam.

But in doing so, he may have achieved something money can’t buy — making millions of people understand why slowing the flow matters.

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