Small freshwater habitats – including ponds, headwater streams, flushes, ditches and small wetlands – are ubiquitous across England’s landscapes. Because of their small size, these habitats have historically been overlooked, but a growing body of evidence demonstrates that they are vital for freshwater biodiversity.
At a landscape scale, for example, ponds have been shown to support more invertebrate and plant species than lakes or rivers. The proportion of rare species in these landscapes is also higher in pond habitats than in the running water network, including pond specialists like Tadpole Shrimp and Starfruit. Ponds also support endangered species more commonly associated with rivers, such as Water Vole and European Eel.
Small freshwaters are especially important in the intensively managed landscapes which typify much of England. This is because small freshwaters have correspondingly small catchments, so are much more likely to be located in pockets of less intensively managed land - and be fed by clean water. As a result, small freshwaters often represent the last refuges for sensitive species that have been lost from larger - often-polluted - rivers and lakes.
Small freshwaters have generally been overlooked in water environment policy and practice, which focuses overwhelmingly on larger rivers and lakes. Historically, small freshwaters have been widely lost to development and agricultural intensification – for example, about half of England’s ponds were destroyed during the 20th century, whilst more than 90% of alkaline fens have disappeared since 1940.
Today, although they’ve (mostly) stopped being infilled or drained, the quality of small freshwaters continues to decline. For example, in censuses of wetland plants for our Water Friendly Farming project we recorded an average 1% whole-catchment loss of plant species richness each year from 2010 to 2018. National Pond Survey data show that 66% of high-quality ponds within the protected sites network lost plant species between 1990 and 2017.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies represent a key opportunity to redress this neglect, and start restoring small freshwaters to their former glory.
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (or LNRS) are spatial plans, developed at the local level to identify, protect and restore sites for nature. There are 48 LNRS areas across England (generally matched to county boundaries). In each of these, stakeholders are being brought together to set local priorities for nature’s recovery, and suggest measures to achieve these priorities. These priorities and measures will be linked to spatial mapping of existing high-quality habitats, and areas where habitats could be most effectively created or restored.
To us, this process seems tailor-made for small freshwaters. These habitats are amongst the easiest to successfully create and restore. Provided they have a clean water source, they’re rapidly colonised by diverse freshwater species, and deliver big knock-on benefits for terrestrial biodiversity too. The restoration or creation of small freshwaters can easily be integrated into terrestrial habitat projects, such as tree planting and meadow restoration, with new freshwaters benefitting from the clean water produced by these new land uses.
Happily, many of the draft LNRS we’ve seen refer extensively to small freshwaters. To assist other LNRS authors in incorporating small freshwaters, we’ve produced small freshwaters guidance for LNRS. In the report, we outline the biodiversity value of small freshwaters, and set out suggested priorities and measures for ponds, headwaters and small wetlands.
Interacting with LNRS authors to share our report, we’ve seen a massive amount of expertise, enthusiasm and effort being applied to the production of Local Nature Recovery Strategies. For all this work to be worthwhile, the statutory integration of LNRS needs to be significantly strengthened.
At present, LNRS’ only legal status is through the planning system, via a duty in the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act to ‘take account’ of LNRS in local development plans (secured by advocacy from parliamentarians, who urged the Government to go further) , and a modest 1.15x ‘strategic significance multiplier’ for biodiversity net gain units delivered in line with LNRS guidance. LNRS habitat restoration targets should be fully embedded into local plans, and should also be integrated into agricultural policy, where they could help to promote uptake of the right Environmental Land Management payments in the right places, engendering a more cohesive, targeted approach to nature recovery in farmed landscapes. Similarly, in water environment policy, LNRS could serve to focus coherent local action, for instance through a formalised link to Water Framework Directive river basin management plans.
Most promisingly, the new government has promised to deliver a land use framework, which will create a unified mechanism for balancing the demands on England’s land. Within such a framework, Local Nature Recovery Strategies could represent a powerful tool to translate national nature recovery goals into on-the-ground, locally-informed action.
Through practical work and research, Freshwater Habitats Trust, and others, have built a compelling body of evidence for the importance of small freshwaters. If properly integrated into water environment, planning and agricultural policy, Local Nature Recovery Strategies could promote the creation and restoration of these vital habitats, and enrich all of England’s landscapes.
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