Environment
All our work is undertaken in a sympathetic manner in accordance with environmental legislation and the Boards’ staff work closely with various environment bodies including the Wildlife Trusts, Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership and catchment partnerships. Wildlife sightings in our watercourses demonstrate that systems can be well maintained without adversely affecting the environment.
Great Big Green Week
6th - 14th June
It is Great Big Green Week! This is the UKs largest annual celebration aimed to drive sustainability and protect the environment. This week, we are raising awareness we'll be sharing more about our work and how we conserve and enhance our local environment.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: Meet Your Environmental Officers
At the Water Management Consortium, Environmental Officers play a crucial role in ensuring that the work we do to manage water levels and reduce flood risk is carried out in a way that supports and enhances the environment.
Their work includes:
💧 Supporting sustainable water management – helping ensure drainage and flood defence work protects both people and nature.
🌱 Enhancing biodiversity – creating and maintaining habitats along watercourses, ditches, and wetlands.
🐦 Protecting wildlife – making sure routine maintenance considers nesting birds, aquatic life, and other species.
📋 Ensuring environmental compliance – working closely with regulations and best practice to minimise the environmental impact.
🌾 Working with landowners and communities – promoting environmentally friendly land and water management practices.
From managing vegetation in waterways to creating habitats that support local wildlife.Throughout the week, we’ll be sharing more about our work and how we conserve and enhance our local environment.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: Protected Wildlife
Drainage Board areas are home to a wide range of protected species. Every maintenance activity, from vegetation management to dredging, must carefully consider their habitats and legal protections.
Some of the species are legally obligated to protect include:
🐹 Water Voles – one of the UK’s fastest-declining mammals, often found along vegetated banks.
🦡 Badgers – whose setts must be protected during any nearby works.
🦞 White-clawed Crayfish – the UK’s only native crayfish species, highly sensitive to water quality.
🦦 Otters – which rely on healthy, undisturbed watercourses.
🐦 Nesting Birds – protected during breeding season, making timing of work essential.
Our environment officers carry out surveys, advise on best practice, and plan works carefully to avoid disturbance or harm.
Water Vole
Identifiable by their chestnut-brown fur, blunt rounded nose, small ears, and furry tail. They inhabit rivers, streams, ditches, ponds, and canals, favouring areas with well-defined banks. Their diet consists mainly of grasses and other waterside vegetation.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: Tackling Invasive Non-Native Species
IDBs play a key role in identifying, managing, and controlling these Invasive Non-Native Species, which can spread quickly and cause serious harm to native wildlife, watercourses, and infrastructure. Across the water management consortium, our workforce is supplied with flashcards to help identify all species, so they can record sightings.
Some of the invasive species we deal with include:
🦦 American Mink – predators that have a devastating impact on native species such as water voles.
🦞 American Signal Crayfish – outcompete our native, white-clawed crayfish and spread disease.
🦀 Chinese Mitten Crab – burrow into banks, increasing erosion and flood risk.
🌸 Himalayan Balsam – spreads rapidly, outcompeting native plants and leaving banks bare in winter.
🌿 Floating Pennywort – forms dense mats that block waterways and reduce oxygen levels.
🌱 Japanese Knotweed – highly invasive, damaging structures and difficult to control.
🌿 Parrot’s Feather – spreads across water surfaces, impacting flow and biodiversity.
⚠️ Giant Hogweed – a hazardous plant that can cause serious skin burns.
🌱 Crassula Helmsii – forms dense mats in wetlands, smothering native plants.
Left unmanaged, these species can increase flood risk, damage ecosystems, and make maintenance much more challenging. Our Environmental Officers monitor their spread, plan control measures, and work with the DLO and landowners to prevent further impact.
🚫 You can help too:
•Avoid planting invasive species in gardens or ponds.
•Never dump garden or pond waste into waterways.
•Report sightings where possible.
American Mink
Invasive non-native species in the UK. They have a body length of approximately 30–40 cm, with a tail measuring around 18 cm. Their fur is dark brown to black, often with a distinctive white patch on the chin and throat. Mink are bold and less elusive than similar native species. They inhabit rivers, streams, lakes, and coastal areas, using dense vegetation and bankside cover for shelter. Their diet is varied and includes fish, small mammals, birds, eggs, amphibians, and crustaceans, posing a significant threat to native wildlife.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: Working with Nature
Managing watercourses is vital for reducing flood risk, but it’s just as important that this work is done carefully and considerately.
Some of the ways we work with nature include:
🌱 Vegetation management in stages – cutting one side of a bank at a time to allow wildlife to move and habitats to recover.
🌿 Phased re-profiling – reforming one bank first, then allowing it to re establish before working on the opposite side.
🐦 Timing works around wildlife – avoiding disturbance during bird nesting season wherever possible.
🌍 Following environmental guidance and best practice – ensuring all work is carried out responsibly and legally.
By taking a staged and sensitive approach, we help maintain healthy ecosystems while still carrying out the important work needed to manage water levels.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: The Impact of Litter
Litter isn’t just unsightly; it has real consequences for both our work and the environment.
🚜 It affects our work:
Rubbish in drains and watercourses can block flow and increase flood risk. It also means valuable time is spent removing waste instead of carrying out essential maintenance and improvement work.
🌍 It harms the environment:
Litter can pollute water, damage habitats, and seriously harm wildlife. Animals can become trapped, injured, or ingest harmful materials. Our workforce regularly encounter litter, from plastic bottles to fly-tipped waste in drains.
✅ You can help by:
•Disposing of waste responsibly
•Recycling where possible
•Never dumping rubbish, garden waste, or debris into ditches or watercourses
•Reporting fly-tipping when you see itEven small actions make a big difference.
🌱 Cleaner waterways help protect wildlife, reduce flood risk, and create a better environment.
🌿 Great Big Green Week: Round-Up
As Great Big Green Week comes to a close, we’ve been proud to highlight the work of our team at the WMC and the important role they play in protecting both our environment and our communities.
This week, we’ve shared how:
💧 Environmental Officers support water management while protecting and enhancing the natural environment.
🐾 Protected species like water voles, otters, and nesting birds are carefully considered in everything we do.
🚫 Invasive non-native species threaten our waterways, wildlife, and flood risk management, and how we’re tackling them.
🌱 Maintenance work is carried out responsibly, with careful planning and timing to work in harmony with nature.
🗑️ Litter impacts everyone, restricting the flow of water, affecting our ability to carry out work and harming the environment.
All these elements are connected. Managing water, protecting wildlife, and maintaining healthy waterways requires a careful balance, and it’s something our teams work hard to achieve every day.
✅ Everyone has a role to play.
Small, positive actions, like disposing of waste responsibly, respecting wildlife, and being mindful of what enters our waterways can make a big difference.
🌍 Together, we can help create a cleaner, safer, and more sustainable environment for the future.