Runoff attenuation features: a sustainable flood mitigation strategy in the Belford catchment, UK

There is evidence to suggest that modern rural land-use management practices have led to increased runoff production at the farm scale. There are concerns that this may have contributed to downstream flooding of towns/villages, especially during intense local storm events. This paper presents an investigation into the potential attenuation of rural runoff through the application of soft-engineered structures upstream of flood-prone settlements, through a demonstration of ongoing initiatives in the Belford catchment, Northumberland (5.7 km2). The soft-engineered features that have been considered in the study include storage ponds, barriers, bunds, and the planting of vegetation and the positioning of woody debris in the riparian zone. The Belford study has been active since November 2007 and is yielding an abundance of good-quality data, including several significant flood events, on how runoff propagates through the small rural catchment and causes flooding of the village, and how flood propagation can be attenuated using Runoff Attenuation Features (RAFs).