These useful resources are particularly for farmers, land managers or conservation advisers, but any interested people will find some gems in here. Please feel free to use, download and share them.
The Scrape Creation Hints and Tips and Sluice Case Studies have proved particularly popular, summarizing practical lessons and insight gleaned from Carrs Wetland farms. One kind commentator observed that the wader scrapes hints and tips offered a more comprehensive explanation of ‘how to do it’ than any Technical Advice Notes available from Natural England.
Capital works for wetland restoration:
Sluice Case Studies 0.9 MB
Scrape Creation Hints and Tips 1.8MB
Advice on Groundworks Contractors and Pricing 30KB
Lessons learned on Archaeological Watching Brief arrangements
Pond Creation Toolkit (Freshwater Habitats Trust, produced for Million Ponds Project)
RSPB Conservation Advice – The RSPB has produced many excellent advice sheets for farmers and land managers. Some useful ones for wetland site managers are:
Ditch Management advice How and why to manage wet ditches and drainage channels for wildlife. For controlling water levels in ditches also see the Carrs Wetland sluice case studies as above. Get an expert practitioner to come and see your site if possible.
Re-wetting Grassland This can be a complex topic, demanding an understanding of hydrology, soil types, land drainage, topographic surveys etc, but for an introduction try RSPB’s managing water levels to benefit birds. Another good one of theirs is water management for conservation. For more comprehensive reference there is an excellent RSPB Handbook on Wetland Management, and if you can get hold of a copy I recommend it. I got mine (free) by attending one of their excellent courses on water level management for wetlands. If they still run them, this course was an absolute bargain and extremely practical and helpful.
Other wetland management resources:
The-Drainage-Channel-Biodiversity-Manual: Integrating wildlife and flood risk management, is a comprehensive 200pg tome jointly authored by experts in the subject at the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) and Natural England (NE).
GCN_Conservation_Handbook[1], by Froglife, with expert input from a large range of expert bodies is the bible for Great Crested Newt habitat work. 60pages, published 2001 but very comprehensive and still much referred to in the profession.
The Carrs Wetland Project 