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Floodplain restoration project underway at Insh Marshes


By Tom Ramage

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At RSPB Insh Marshes, uprooted tree trunks have been installed in the river, helping to return a straightened channel to a natural meandering course - improving habitats for nature and boosting climate resilience.

Getting down to work
Getting down to work

In the 18th and 19 th century, humans experimented with modifying the floodplain - straightening several of the rivers which feed into the floodplain and building walls (or ‘embankments’) to keep rivers like the Tromie straight and narrow.

These modifications are now causing more harm than good, as they fail and fall into disrepair, requiring expensive and damaging interventions. Part of the wider Cairngorms Connect Partnership, the Insh Marshes team have looked to alternative solutions to make the reserve more resilient to the impacts of climate change, which include increased seasonality and intense rainfall.

Work in progress: Insh Marshes floodplaiin restoration
Work in progress: Insh Marshes floodplaiin restoration

Following extensive community consultation, the first of the floodplain restoration projects got underway in early 2022. The project aimed to slow the flow of water and provide habitat for fish to spawn, rest and feed, through the installation of uprooted trees in the river Tromie.

Environmental consultants EnviroCentre undertook a study to investigate options and the final project was a result of careful hydrological and morphological studies and consultation with statutory agencies.

In autumn the project was successfully carried out by local contractors, McGowans.

Digging in at Insh Marshes
Digging in at Insh Marshes

Technically known as “Large Woody Material”, nine spruce tree trunks were strategically placed in the river Tromie. Kindly donated from the nearby Wildland Limited estate, the trees needed to be carefully uprooted, with the root plate structure intact, and transported around two miles to the river Tromie. Here, they were buried in the riverbed with the root plate facing upstream, replicating natural events, but securing the trunk and root plate further into the riverbed and shingle banks.

"Retaining the root plate is a tricky part of the process, but crucial," said a spokesperson for the site team.

"Once lodged in the river, the root plate alters the flow of the river. During flood events, rock, sand and silt get deposited by the river, building up in different ways round the root plate, creating new habitats like shingle banks. These new habitats should benefit a range of species including rare insects, like the five-spot ladybird and northern silver-stiletto fly."

Supported by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, the range of habitats created by the simple and effective installation of woody material will provide spawning, feeding and resting habitats for fish such as Atlantic Salmon.

A wide range of aquatic invertebrates will also benefit from this ‘messier’ habitat, and birds like dippers, kingfishers and goldeneye will reap the benefits of healthier invertebrate and fish populations.

Over the coming months, the Insh Marshes site team are looking to further develop other floodplain restoration projects and are currently in the process of tendering a consultancy to support this work, in line with input from the local community gathered during consultations in November 2020.

This project is supported by the Endangered Landscapes Programme and the Scottish Government’s

Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.


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