How can we make space for water?
Healthy rivers are the lifeblood of our communities and landscapes. They shape our world, but for too long, we’ve straightened, drained, polluted and disconnected them.
Making space for water means reversing this harm: working with nature to restore rivers and their surrounding landscapes, so they can flow freely, support wildlife, link up public green spaces, reduce flooding and recover for future generations.
This is catchment restoration in action, an ambitious but achievable vision for vibrant, dynamic river systems that benefit both people and the planet.
Here’s how we make it happen.
1. Rewarding landowners for nature-friendly river corridors
Supporting land managers with significant financial incentives to provide land along rivers for nature. Add your name to our Gov.uk petition today to show your support.
2. Setting back damaging or incompatible land use
This will mean less pressure near sensitive waterways and more space for rivers to breathe, but it could also include transformational actions such as the realignment of floodbanks. These actions reduce flood risk downstream and open up space for rivers to reconnect with their natural floodplains, restoring their shape, flow and natural functions.
3. Restoring an ecological network along and around the already-connected river systems
Riparian zones - the lush corridors alongside rivers - should be bursting with biodiversity. Allowing and delivering a range of habitats in the riparian zone, including floodplains, wetlands, floodplain meadows or wet woodland, through natural regeneration or human-managed reforestation, can reintroduce this richness and mitigate some human-caused habitat loss and fragmentation.
4. Allow natural processes
Rivers need freedom to move, meander and shape the land. That means allowing natural processes like erosion, deposition, tree fall, natural damming, in-channel habitat formation, wetland creation and seasonal flooding. These processes create homes for wildlife and build climate resilience.
5. Connecting existing habitats at the catchment scale
A resilient river system isn’t just one healthy site, it’s a connected network. Working across whole catchments will link habitats, boost ecological function, ensure wildlife can move freely and adapt to changing conditions, and bring flood protection benefits to multiple communities and businesses downstream.
6. Reintroducing keystone species whose activities can expedite river restoration
A key example of this is beavers. By building leaky dams, foraging, digging channels and creating wetlands, they accelerate natural river restoration, helping to slow water, trap sediment, reduce floods and support hundreds of other species.
Together, these actions can restore catchments from source to sea
By combining these tools in the right places, we’re building a new kind of river network: natural, dynamic and alive. It’s how we can deliver on 30x30, support farming futures, protect communities from floods and droughts and bring the UK’s rivers back to life.
But for this to happen at the speed and scale that is needed, we urgently need your support. Sign the petition today and call on the Government for simple and accessible funding schemes to help farmers and landowners take action for rivers and nature.