River Restoration

River restoration (also known as river rehabilitation) consists of identifying problems on a river or its catchment, and then taking action to solve these problems, thereby bringing a river closer to its ‘natural state’.

“Rivers don’t need management – people do!”

There are many different ways you can help restore a river - for example,

    » Good farming practice to reduce runoff and erosion

    » Fencing off the river bank to prevent stock access

    » Introducing buffer zones

    » Wetland areas

    » Reducing the intensity of agriculture in an area

What all these actions have in common is getting the stakeholders in the catchment to value the water quality and quantity. Then together we take action to restore these rivers. 

Examples of stakeholders include Landowners, farmers, water companies, tourism boards, recreational and commercial fishermen.  The Westcountry rivers trust works with all these different groups have an interest in water, and the AARC project uses our good links with the various stakeholders to carry out river restoration