TRIPLE C
Climate resilient Community-based Catchment planning and management
Priority Axis
Adaptation to Climate ChangeSpecific objective
Adaptation to Climate Change
Lead partner
Somerset County CouncilContact
Start Date
01/09/2016End Date
30/06/2021Project budget
5 108 892 €ERDF amount
3 065 335 €ERDF rate
60%About
Common challenge
Climate change is predicted to involve more extreme rainfall events with accelerated loss of topsoil, and hence an increased risk of flooding and drought. This increase in natural risks is combined with a low awareness of the impact and risks of climate change. Given the high economic impacts of flooding, there is a need to maintain and strengthen adaptive capacity in the coastal hinterland areas. New solutions need to be developed and applied to improve resilience. In a context of reduced public financing, better, more robust and cost-effective erosion control and flood defenses are needed.
Overall objective
Main outputs
Cross border approach
Main Achievements
The project has produced an Action Plan identifying solutions for managing flood risk and erosion risk through a catchment-scale project, based on the experiences of partners.
Catchment based networks have been set up in all 6 catchments. These are clusters of farmers and water managers co-developing solutions that will enable the continued tackling of problems beyond the life of the project. Such innovative farmer-led networks are building knowledge, commitment and skills within the farming community and land management advisors, essential for better understanding, acceptance and uptake of climate adaptation measures in farmed landscapes.
Model simulations of soil ersoion have been performed for the different catchments. The refined model that will enable targeted and cost-efficient implementation of 30 different erosion control measures in 4 catchments, leading to an estimated 30% reduction in soil erosion
Triple C projects in Somerset won the 2018 UK Rivers Prize. The projects also won the catchment scale project prize. The prize resulted in a lot of publicity both locally and nationally. This national recognition continued into 2019. FWAG and the EA have been monitoring how and if the leaky dams ‘slow the flow’ and how they change over time. The EA presented these results at the British Society for Geomorphology Conference in Sheffield. A poster was also produced and is being used at various events by the EA (Poster in evidence folder). A Volunteer Flood Warden was recognised as a “River Champion” at the 2019 UK rivers conference.
In Flanders, the collaboration between partners has resulted in a series of demo/trial fields which has ensured an awakening of interest among farmers and makes the implementation of ECM more accessible for farmers and landowners. Inagro has realised 3 leaky ponds in West-Flanders. For the design of these ponds they used experience from other project partners.
Province of Antwerp have re-naturalised the watersystem. These measures have realized double the expected water retention capacity. The farmers have become enthusiastic about the measures, and more are showing an interest in getting involved.
ZLTO / WBD anticipated that their measures would be useful in times of heavy rainfall, however the very dry summers of 2018 and 2019 demonstrated that the measures were also useful for retaining water in the soil. The farmers see that they are able to use them in all circumstances, and are enthusiastic