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Working together with nature to safeguard water

A landscape-scale project partnering with businesses, the public sector and farming communities to reduce flood risk, protect water supplies, benefit nature and restore rivers.

The water environment is under increasing pressure from too much, too little, or too polluted water, amplified by climate change, biodiversity loss, political challenges, land changes, and old infrastructure.

These problems are too connected to solve on their own.

To fix them, we need to work together across the whole landscape and with multiple sectors. We need to treat the environment, which people and businesses depend on, as one whole “system”. But the system is failing, and the problems cannot be resolved by traditional approaches alone. Nature-based, catchment solutions hosted and managed by farmers can play a critical role in addressing multiple environmental and societal challenges.

These problems are too connected to solve on their own.

To fix them, we need to work together across the whole landscape and with multiple sectors. We need to treat the environment, which people and businesses depend on, as one whole “system”. But the system is failing, and the problems cannot be resolved by traditional approaches alone. Nature-based, catchment solutions hosted and managed by farmers can play a critical role in addressing multiple environmental and societal challenges.

The problems

Increase in severe flood events

Increase in droughts and vulnerability to low flows during dry summer months

Uncertainty and changes to farm payments for farm businesses

Poor water quality

Declining habitat condition

Unfavourable river conservation status

Our mission

To enable this transition, the Wye and Usk Foundation are creating an evidence-based, multi-buyer, multi-seller market (Resilient Rivers), to enable the system change that will reduce societal costs, allow farmers to farm for water as well as food, and improve the resilience of the catchment, its infrastructure and rural community.

Our plan

Effective solutions to man-made problems can often be found in nature and we are using nature-based solutions in upland areas to reduce downstream flood risk by delivering a variety of “interventions”, including storing rain in healthy soils and slowing the speed at which water moves over the landscape.

See our full plan

The benefits

Reduce flood risk

We model a 5–10% reduction in flood peaks during severe storm events, helping protect downstream communities.

Tackle climate impacts

Our nature-based approach helps landscapes better cope with climate change and builds long-term resilience.

Boost summer river flows

By enhancing soil infiltration and groundwater recharge, we help maintain flows during dry summer months.

Improve Water Quality

Our interventions reduce sediment and nutrient runoff, supporting cleaner, healthier rivers.

Support farming communities

We provide new income streams for farmers through land use that benefits people, nature, and the economy.

Restore soils & grasslands

Healthier soils mean better infiltration, reduced compaction, and improved grass productivity for grazing systems.

How can we achieve these benefits?

Our progress

Our team of experienced catchment advisors are working with farmers and land managers on the ground to carry out baseline walkovers to identify opportunities to allow rainfall to sink into the soil rather than run over the top, gathering speed and causing flooding (and taking precious soil and nutrients with it).

  • Undertaken a soil testing program in the catchments to provide evidence to the buyers of the potential changes to soil infiltration through different “interventions” which are being identified by farmers as feasible on their land.
  • Developed a model to quantify beneficial impact of interventions on flooding.
  • Developed a process for assessing farms to identify the potential services they can offer and quantifying the impact, which will in turn allow us to quantify payments once we have confirmed rates (which will be agreed by negotiation between farmer representatives and the buyer group).
  • Engaged an external hydrologist to provide robust evidence to support the scheme and allow the quantification of impacts and payments.

Explored further lines of income from other benefits of the interventions such as biodiversity net gain and carbon with the aim of drawing in more investment and boosting payments to farmers.

With thanks for Powys County Council through Welsh Government Natural Flood Management Accelerator funding, we have been able to engage with over 100 farmers in the Nant Bran, Ysgir & Cilieni catchments of the River Usk – as well as Crai farmers through the CaSTCo (Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperation) project.

Development funding from Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and UK Government NEIRF funding has allowed us to develop business plans and identify the multiple connected benefits that land change will bring.

Our funders

Get in touch

Whether you’re a landowner, farmer, business, or public sector organisation, we’d love to hear from you.

Further reading

For landholders
For businesses & the public sector
Why is this investment needed in the Usk?
Why is this investment needed in the Monnow?

© 2025 Resilient Rivers | All rights reserved

Our plan (continued)

The Resilient Rivers project will support local farming communities in the Upper Usk Catchment (above Brecon) and in the Upper Monnow at an ambitious scale in multi-million-pound programmes to make a big difference to flood risk in the more populated areas of the lower catchment, as part of an innovative “nature market”.

We will achieve this by bringing together private businesses, utilities and public sector organisations impacted by increased flood risk with upland farmers/landowners who can deliver a variety of “ecosystem services” and other benefits.

Private and public sector support and funding and collaboration with landowners will be needed to make our vision a reality. This blended finance approach is increasingly being favoured by UK Government for nature restoration projects. This project is one of the biggest blended finance projects being developed in the UK and there is significant national interest.

It’s an important pilot and an opportunity to show how working together can really make a difference, not just for flooding, but to address water shortages and the climate and biodiversity crises, whilst ensuring we continue to support and work with the local farming community.

How can we achieve these benefits?

The main way in which upland farmers/landowners can deliver these services is by increasing the amount of water that can be stored in their land (due to soils in these areas that are freely draining when not compacted) and on their land, via ponds and leaky debris dams. We will be supporting them to create effective ways of “farming water” in the landscape – providing alternative income streams and a secure future. 

A catchment (watershed) wide, natural approach is increasingly being favoured by UK Government for nature restoration and flood prevention projects. The Resilient Rivers Usk and Resilient Rivers Monnow are two of many examples of nature (or catchment) markets which are delivering change at landscape scale not just to reduce flood risk, but to address the nature crisis, whilst ensuring we continue to support and work with the local farming community. It’s an innovative and exciting opportunity to show how working together can really make a difference.

For landholders

Project guidance & opportunities:

WUF are committed to delivering a “just transition” which rewards landowners for making land use decisions that bring benefits to downstream communities and business. Our approach recognises that landowners are best placed to design interventions that deliver our joint aims, and your participation is at the heart of all that we do. The land use changes that landowners have developed with us so far include:

  • Grazing management
    • Winter rested fields / moving stock to low-risk fields over winter: government analysis and our extensive research (through infiltration testing) has shown strong evidence that fields intensively grazed in winter months have significantly reduced infiltration due to compaction. This results in greater overland flow than if “high risk” fields were rested over winter (November to March).
  • Intercepting flow pathways:
    • Buffer strips
    • Bunded hedgerows
    • Ponds, scrapes & wetlands
    • Woodland creation

Farmer and land manager participation:

If you are a farmer or land manager interested in delivering nature-based solutions that can provide a variety on environmental and social benefits, please contact us.

For businesses & the public sector

From flood risk management to biodiversity benefits, drought resilience, to engaged communities, if you want to reduce your risks and deliver your aims for nature and climate, our Resilient Rivers projects can deliver for you.

These projects will reduce long-term flood risk and future insurance costs for business and your local customers, as well as ensuring that local road and rail transport is protected from flooding. It can also help your businesses deliver corporate environment and sustainability and/or social and community strategies, and support improvements to a local, well-loved rivers (which are designated as Special Areas of Conservation). Many businesses are reporting that involvement in nature projects is a valuable tool for recruiting and retaining staff and winning new work.

How can your business or organisation get involved?

Paying for land use change and natural solutions in UK initiatives is a cost-effective way of delivering your aims.

Our Resilient Rivers markets deliver a multi-buyer, multi product approach which brings business together to deliver shared aims – spreading cost and risk and sharing benefits.

The Resilient Rivers initiative can support you to deliver corporate, environment and sustainability and/or social and community strategies, meanwhile reducing long-term flood risk and safeguarding water for the future for your business, communities and customers.

Our DIME* product will deliver the following products from one payment:

  • Water flow change (reducing flooding)
  • Groundwater recharge (drought resilience)
  • Carbon offsetting (via the Woodland Carbon Code)
  • Soil and nutrient loss prevention
  • Voluntary Biodiversity Credits
  • Social equity and community*in development, copyright pending

There are also opportunities through this project for:

  • Water usage offset (via Replenish – a water stewardship metric)

If you are a business and are interested in finding out more about how you can benefit from Resilient Rivers please contact us.

Why is this investment needed in the Usk?

The Usk catchment has been hit with devastating impacts of two major floods in the past 4 years. Storm Dennis in 2020 and Storm Franklin in 2022. The economic cost of Dennis was around £100m. The floods of late 2024/early 2025 have illustrated how frequently these events are now happening.

The Usk is Welsh Water/Dwr Cymru’s key river for public supply. Its valley, a critical route into mid Wales, has over 14,000 homes at flood risk—11,000 in Newport. Flooding originates in the upper catchment above Brecon, where 83% of land is sheep-grazed. WUF has engaged 52% of upstream farmers and the MoD, covering 241 km² of the 400 km² upper catchment.

The upper Usk’s farmland is dominated by permeable ‘brown earth’ soils over the St Maughan’s aquifer, but these soils are highly impacted by agriculture. From 331 infiltration tests, we’ve shown how land use affects rain absorption and aquifer recharge. Our interventions can reduce 1-in-10-year floods by over 30% and boost aquifer recharge by 40%, enhancing catchment and ecological resilience to climate change.

The cost of the current cultural, economic and regulatory, framework, agriculture operates within is more than £50m p/a and is increasing.

To change this framework, WUF are creating an evidence-based, multi-buyer, multi-seller market, to enable the system change that will reduce societal costs, allow farmers to farm for water as well as food, and improve the resilience of the catchment, its infrastructure and rural community.

Why is this investment needed in the Monnow?

The Monnow catchment has been subject to an increasing frequency of damaging floods in recent years with property and infrastructure being affected on multiple occasions in the last five years, with several in the last 6 months. This increase can, in part, be attributed to climate change – the Met Office has documented a 13% increase in winter rainfall over last 5 years. However, this does not explain the dramatic increase in severity of flooding over the past few years; in the Monnow we are witnessing common rainfall events generating floods that we previously associated with serious storms. We are currently seeing a rainfall event with a return period of 6 months generate flows that were previously associated with an 8-year return-period rainfall events. The disparity between lower rainfall intensity and higher flood peaks can be attributed to the catchment no longer being in its natural state. The societal, financial and legislative pressures have created a system that exacerbating winter soil compaction. The combination of more intense rainfall and increasing soil compaction increases the proportion of precipitation draining as “overland flow” (water running over the surface of the ground), reducing the proportion that infiltrates through to ground water. The reduction in groundwater recharge reduces the catchment’s ability to mitigate droughts, whilst the increase in overland flow greatly increases the effects of flooding.

Increasing surface runoff transports soil with it, increasing the issue of sedimentation in watercourses throughout the upper catchment, in the Monnow river and on into the river Severn. The Monnow has historically been a hugely significant river for trout spawning. However, due to increased soil being deposited by flood water, spawning habitat has been degraded. Increasing frequency and severity of high flows has washed eggs away. Decreasing river levels in the summer cause increased river temperature. Together, these factors mean that in recent years the Wye and Usk Foundation’s electrofishing results have revealed a dramatic crash in trout numbers within the Monnow Catchment. 

Resilient Rivers Monnow will deliver cost effective natural solutions to reduce flooding, reduce the risk of summer river low-flows and improve the ecology, habitat and water quality of the River Monnow catchment, while increasing economic activity in the headwaters of the River Monnow.