Slow The Flow: Calderdale is working to promote the idea of Natural Flood Management (NFM) in the Calder Valley and we are very proud to say that we have had a terrific amount of interest in our website, our Facebook page and Twitter.
Our objectives are simple: to reduce the likelihood of significant flooding events in our towns and villages along the Calder Valley.
After only a few months, we now have over a dozen volunteer river surveyors who are carrying out the first phase of our work by measuring the river network from Walsden and Cornholme all the way down the valley. The data from these surveys will identify where the best locations are to put interventions such as leaky dams and attenuation ponds.
This is just the first step to understand why and how the valley floods. Of course, flooding is exacerbated by and strongly linked to climate change, but is also affected by the significant man-made changes to how we manage land from the top of the catchment right through to the estuaries which take the water into the sea.
The next phase will be to determine where interventions need to go to ‘Slow The Flow’ using the flood modelling which we are contributing to. If you have land or know where these interventions might ‘Slow The Flow’, please let us know. We are also looking for land owners who are interested in NFM and who may want to work with us to help manage the water flow off the hills.
This is no small task and one which will take many years to achieve but if we want to avoid repeats of over 400 years of flooding in the valley, we simply have to start somewhere.
If you would like to help, please get in touch with us via Facebook on our contacts page.