This sketch is a design development for a project restoring a river to its old self and improving the river and wetland habitats. Many years ago the fashion was to straighten out rivers in a misguided effort to move the water through towns more quickly to reduce urban flooding.  

When this river was straightened, it altered the traditional flooding patterns of the meadow. In addition, cattle grazing was stopped and the combination of these actions led to a decline in the number of orchids that grow here. The work that I did looked at how the habitat could be restored by reshaping the river banks and removing the weir and straightened channel to encourage a variety of micro habitats to develop and for the orchids to return.  

Fortunately, today’s policy is to help reduce urban flooding by reintroducing traditional habitats further upstream to slow the volume of water entering the river system by a variety of means, such as growing trees along rivers, disrupting field drainage systems so that wet meadows can return, and in some places even reintroducing beavers who are great little water engineers creating permeable dams and encouraging habitat regeneration.