The Floodplain Meadows Partnership is coming to Wales!

We're excited to announce a new Welsh floodplain meadows project. We have secured funding from the Moondance Foundation for a two-year project to increase our knowledge of Welsh floodplain meadows, build connections with communities and organisations working in the floodplain, and expand our advocacy work to ensure floodplain meadows and the many benefits they bring are given their rightful place in the post-Brexit policy landscape. 

The project is primarily focused on south-east Wales, Carmarthenshire, and the Wye catchment with three main objectives.

1. Increasing our knowledge

Our inventory currently shows only 27 hectares (ha) of species-rich floodplain meadows in Wales with a further 5 ha under restoration. We believe there must be more sites we are unaware of and would love to hear from anyone who manages a species-rich meadow in the floodplain or is involved in restoration projects.  

We will also be investigating the historical extent of floodplain meadows in a target catchment using a method developed by FMP in England. Work has identified that in some English catchments, floodplain meadows were the major land use.  We will pilot this approach in Wales, hopefully paving the way for wider research and mapping.

Alongside this, we are aiming to model floodplain meadow restoration potential in Carmarthenshire and survey a sample of locations previously modelled in the Wye Catchment and south-east Wales to support a range of upcoming restoration projects.

2. Building connections

We will run a series of seminars on floodplain meadows to share our extensive research on this rare habitat and hope to build a network of floodplain meadow collaborators, including farmers, community groups, meadow groups and others working in floodplains to share information, case studies and experiences.  

3. Advocacy

We will expand our work with Natural Resources Wales, the Senedd, and other policy groups in Wales, to supply evidence relevant to policy development and legislation that supports land managers to restore and manage floodplain meadows, particularly the post-Brexit Sustainable Farming Scheme expected to start in 2025.

The project will run until December 2024. If you know of species-rich hay meadows, or restoration projects in the Welsh floodplain, are a floodplain land manager, farmer cluster, meadows group, or other organisation interested in meadows we’d love to hear from you.  Please get in touch with the project officer Caroline O’Rourke at caroline.orourke@open.ac.uk. Diolch!