The NFM Network Scotland  ‘Natural Flood Management (NFM) is a catchment scale technique that involves working with natural features and processes to manage the sources and pathways of floodwaters.  It typically involves restoring the natural capacity of a catchment to slow or store floodwater and covers a spectrum of measures from full scale restoration of the course of a river or intertidal habitat to smaller scale land management measures such as upland drain blocking. In addition to benefits to flooding, these techniques can provide many other benefits, such as improvements in biodiversity, water quality, carbon storage, and increased resilience to the effects of climate change.

The NFM Network Scotland has been set up to share knowledge and best practice amongst those working with this approach. With just under 100 NFM actions identified in Scotland’s Local Flood Risk Management Plans, a significant amount of NFM work is now taking place across Scotland. Consequently, there is a need for exchange between sites, to more effectively share knowledge, research and experience of implementing NFM in Scotland, across the rest of the UK and further afield.  The network allows better connections to be made between researchers and practitioners and avoid issues such as duplication.’ Click here to read more