Introduction

The Catchment Based approach is a collaborative, partnership led initiative towards working at a whole catchment scale for the benefit of river health. The approach brings together multiple stakeholders within a catchment, to work together proactively to deliver projects, make policy changes, empower communities and more to improve the natural environment. A catchment scale approach looks beyond the watercourse itself, to the whole catchment of a river, and all the environmental, social and economic impacts it faces, to deliver multiple benefits across the landscape.

CaBA partnerships are actively working in all 100+ river catchments across England and cross-border with Wales, directly supporting achievement of many of the targets under the Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan.

How we work

The Trent Rivers Trust is leading on the facilitation of Catchment Partnerships across several sub catchments of the River Trent which include the River Mease. This work is generously supported by Severn Trent.

The Mease falls within the ‘Tame Anker Mease’ management catchment. More information on the management catchment is available here.

The catchment partnership involves a range of organisations from regulators such as the Environment Agency, local government, wildlife trusts, Severn Trent Water, farmers and landowners and communities.

What this means for the Mease

The Tame Anker Mease catchment is incredibly diverse with much of the catchment being heavily urbanised. The Mease, conversely is a mainly agricultural landscape with run off being one of the contributing factors to the elevated phosphate levels in the river. Additionally, as most of the catchment is under ownership of private landowners, projects are heavily reliant on farmer engagement and buy-in for their success, which has led to good working relationships with many farmers within the catchment.

Impact

More information on what has been achieved and further work aims and priorities can be found in the Tame Anker Mease catchment action plan.

Several stakeholder engagement events have taken place within the Mease catchment to strengthen the partnership and take a collaborative approach to shaping the catchment priorities and objectives which are:

• Farmer Collaboration
• Water Quality and abstraction
• Flooding and Climate Change
• Communities, education and access
• Riparian habitats and landscapes
• Communication and engagement