Water is a pre-requisite for life, is involved in almost all processes of life on our planet and has many functions in the climate system as well. All organisms contain 50– 90% water, some aquatic organisms even 99%. If water becomes scarce or has poor quality, plants and animals cannot thrive.
The Woodland site is on the side of a hill, and as a result it has numerous boundary ditches running through and around it. Over the years many of these have become poorly maintained and have degraded for many reasons. It is due to this that during spring and summer there is somewhat of a scarcity of water as the dew pond and ditches dry up.
Key to improving biodiversity on the site is improving the access to water for animals and insects who will drink it and will be important for their habitats - we know that this is very important in our goal of bringing more wildlife to the woodland and meadows.
Water from Longdown Lane
One of the main watercourses comes from Longdown lane and follows quite closely the path of the public footpath. Through the top gateway it was flooded all winter and water was making its way down the field instead of through the drainage ditch were it was originally directed - you can see evidence of this below (the gateway is out of shot on the left hand side of the photo).
Fundamentally this is a huge waste of water and our goal is to rectify this to directing it on its original course and using it to both fill the dew pond in Camps Copse (currently being repaired to be 1ft deeper) and also a secondary man made pond which we uncovered in the middle of the site and will resurrect.
As well as wanting to make this gateway easily walkable during winter again, crucially we want this water to be moving where we want it and doing more good to the site. We uncovered a very old 6 inch clay pipe under the gateway which had broken long ago, we've dug this out and replaced it with a much more durable 320ml plastic pipe and are now confident this will fix the issue for many years to come.
The next step before winter is to ensure that the drainage ditches which take this water through to the dew pond in Camps Copse, then on through the rest of the site are cleared and flowing well.
Click on an image for a larger view.