EELSCAPES

Eelscapes is a Landscape Recovery project that aims to restore nature-rich wetlands along the River Severn from Tewkesbury to Gloucester. These habitats will help the endangered European eel, rare true fox-sedge, and much other wildlife to thrive.

WWT, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust, and the Environment Agency are working with people in the Severn Vale, who own, manage, and use the land.

The eel overlay on the map below shows the approximate location of the Eelscapes project area. We are not planning to release gigantic eels into the River Severn!

Healthy wetland habitats are good for people and wildlife. Leisure and learning activities that connect to wetland nature can improve people’s wellbeing. Wetlands can provide business opportunities and income for local people. They can also help communities by protecting against flooding and drought. 

The valley of the River Severn in Gloucestershire is a low-lying landscape which is bordered by the Cotswolds to the east, and the Forest of Dean and Malvern Hills to the west. The land is mainly used for farming and woodland but there are also large settlements including Gloucester and Tewkesbury. The River Severn and its many tributaries is one of the most important river systems in the UK for the European eel, and the wider Severn Vale has many sites of international and national importance for wildlife conservation.

Historically, the River Severn would have had extensive floodplains, and water levels would have varied with the seasons as the river rose and fell. These floodplains would have contained a range of wetland habitats and supported a huge diversity of wildlife, sustained by the nutrient-rich floodwaters.

In more recent times, the floodplain has been much changed by human activities. Embankments were built along much of the river to restrict flooding. This allowed for floodplain management for agriculture and provided protection to properties and agricultural land from frequent flood events. However, water still comes over these embankments during floods.

This top video shows part of the Eelscapes project area during a flood in January 2021 (© Richard Humphrey Photography), and the bottom video is taken from roughly the same location in the summer of 2024 (© Eelscapes 2024):

Changes made by people have also altered the floodplain in other ways. Woodlands have been cleared and wetlands drained to increase space for agriculture. Streams have been made into ditches, draining water off the land into the River Severn in spring and summer. Many of these have flaps which stop rising river water from flowing up the ditches in times of flood, but they also prevent fish and other species from travelling between the river and the floodplain. The combination of spring and summer drainage and increased flooding, usually in the autumn and winter, means that conditions in the River Severn valley are becoming more extreme. With the land being either very wet or very dry there is an increasing challenge for farmers and wildlife.

The Severn vale is a dynamic landscape, and it will continue to change in future, in particular due to climate change. Our weather is predicted to become even warmer and wetter, and this will impact the levels and frequency of flooding, the types of agriculture that are possible, and the wildlife and habitats found along the river.

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is Critically Endangered, with numbers dropping by 98% since the 1980s. There are many reasons for their decline. In the Severn Vale, habitat loss from large-scale drainage of wetlands and the prevention of eel movements due to artificial barriers, such as dams, weirs and embankments, are big factors. The Eelscapes project aims to increase the amount of habitat suitable for eels by creating a mix of new wetlands, and by improving existing watercourses. We will also remove barriers such as outfalls, so the eels' habitat is better connected and they can migrate more freely to and from the River Severn.

The lifecycle of the European eel is complex. They hatch in part of the Atlantic Ocean near Bermuda, called the Sargasso Sea. Using ocean currents, they migrate thousands of kilometres to Europe. During this journey they develop into tiny glass eels which then move into freshwater and undergo several more transformations as they grow. Firstly becoming elvers they spread through our river systems and find suitable wetland habitats and food. Later elvers become yellow eels or immature adults before the final transition to silver eels. Finally, silver eels return to the Sargasso Sea to breed.

True fox-sedge (Carex vulpina) is a wetland plant found in only a few locations in England. It prefers areas where the water table is high and grows in the same habitat as many other threatened wetland species. It provides habitat and food for small mammals, songbirds and waterfowl, and the caterpillars of several butterfly and moth species thrive on it. The stems of true fox-sedge can also help to slow the flow of water, reducing erosion and filtering out pollutants.

True fox-sedge spreads slowly and with current management practices, is unlikely to increase in quantity or the area it covers. In Gloucestershire, true fox-sedge is becoming increasingly vulnerable to extinction. The Eelscapes project will improve the habitat for this species and we will reintroduce it to restored floodplain areas nearby.

As well as supporting the recovery of our two key species, the Eelscapes project aims to benefit wider biodiversity along the River Severn. The creation of wetland mosaic habitats, from open water to reedbeds, marshland to wet woodland, and the reconnection of floodplain sites to the River Severn, will support a whole multitude of other rare and declining species, including amphibians, wading birds, and waterfowl.​

Eelscapes has carried out a wide range of surveys across the project area to study a variety of wildlife, including our two focal species, true fox-sedge and European eel and also water vole, otter, bats, waterbirds and insects. The aim of these surveys is to establish where these species currently live and how common they are. This information will be used to design habitat restorations to help boost their populations and monitor changes to their populations in future years.

Other surveys we have completed include habitat condition assessment, surveys of invasive species, water quality sampling and soil chemistry sampling. ​We will continue to do surveys to monitor plant and animal populations as the project develops, so we can determine if species, including the European eel and true fox-sedge, are showing signs of recovery in the Severn Vale.

The Eelscapes vision is to restore, enhance, connect, and sustainably manage naturally functioning and climate-resilient floodplain wetlands along the River Severn.​ It will promote the recovery of the critically endangered European eel, the rare true fox-sedge, and many other priority wetland species. ​Eelscapes will also raise awareness of the function of wetlands and promote the social and economic benefits they can provide for rural businesses and for communities along the Severn Vale corridor and beyond.​

We have created these Computer Generated Images to show what restored nature-rich wetlands along the River Severn might look like in twenty years’ time and how people could benefit.

This image shows what Eelscapes aims to achieve. It is an impression of what parts of the Severn Vale might look like during a future summer, after we have created a ‘mosaic’ of different wetland types. Interventions to create habitats including ponds, re-wiggled ditches, marsh and wet woodland will become more established over twenty years or more. What the project area actually looks like will inevitably be different from this image, depending on what is decided on through the development process.

This image shows how newly created wetland features can be combined with facilities and activities for people near existing towns. Of course, what such places look like will be different from this image and depends on what is decided through the development process.

Eelscapes is using an innovative approach to funding through combining public and private finance. We are working with Eunomia Research and Consulting to identify private investment opportunities. These are based on the benefits of improvements to the environment provided by this project, and also the exciting potential for delivering programmes, such as education and health, that can benefit local communities.

Initial research by Eunomia has identified the current value of these benefits in the Eelscapes project area as follows:

If you or your business is interested in investing in long-term contributions to nature recovery or social benefits through the Eelscapes project, please contact eelscapes@gloucestershirewildlifetrust.co.uk.

The Eelscapes project will be doing the following: