Catchment to Coast

Introduction

Catchment to Coast is one of 25 DEFRA FCRIP funded Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP) projects.  It is focused on reducing flood risk, reducing coastal erosion and improving drought tolerance across Southend and Thurrock, in Essex, UK, working with a range of partners, led by Southend City Council with Castle Point and Thurrock councils. New and innovative flood and erosion mitigation measures are being trialed and data is being gathered on their effectiveness as well as  on wider aspects such as water quality and habitats.  Our results will facilitate improvement in local, regional and national policy for a changing climate. See the Catchment to Coast web site.

Policysupport.org (King's College London and AmbioTEK CIC) are developing the following as part of the project:

• A comprehensive  monitoring network to understand baseline (pre-intervention) inland and coastal flooding, coastal erosion and water quality in the area, including weather, stream stage and discharge, soil and canopy water storage, groundwater, tides and wave power.  The network is based on our www.freestation.org low cost sensing technology and currently includes some >63 data loggers throughout the area.

• Experimental monitoring of installed interventions (leaky debris dams, wet woodland, micro-SuDS, water capture and re-use, nature-inspired coastal defences, and nature-based water quality management).

• Development of an instance of Co$tingNature/local - a web-based spatial analysis tool, integrating data from the monitoring network, for: mapping of flooding and coastal erosion processes; understanding the impact of interventions; modelling optimal strategies for scaling interventions.

• Analysis of the causes of flooding and coastal erosion, the effectiveness of nature-based interventions in addressing these risks, co-benefits for nature and people and a strategy for scaling nature-based solutions to manage current risks.

Results to date

• We have established a long-term baseline of rainfall, streamflow, wind, wave and tide for the area. Example data are shown below.

• We have developed the most comprehensive environmental monitoring network of any peri-urban area in the UK and have collected millions of data points to better understand the drivers of flooding and coastal erosion (2025: 1.5 million, 2024: 64 million, 2023:  19 million, 2022: 1.3 million). All data are open-access here. Example data shown below.

• We have developed Co$tingNature/local instances for the major catchments in the area: Prittle Brook, C-X ditch and Mucking Creek. Example data are shown below.

Monitoring and modelling innovations

We have developed a range of innovations that have enabled our work and would also be useful for other projects on nature-based solutions, natural flood management, coastal erosion management strategy and effectiveness assessment.  These could support current and future FCRIP projects and future rounds of funding.  NFM project funding sources include:

• Natural Flood Management Programme – £25 million programme from the Environment Agency and Defra to enhance flood resilience through NFM projects.

• Grant-in-Aid (GiA) Funding – Funding from Defra available to risk management authorities for flood risk management schemes, including NFM.

• Countryside Stewardship – Financial incentives for land managers implementing environmental measures, such as flood risk management.

• Regional Flood and Coastal Committees (RFCC) Local Levy – Funds flood risk management projects, including NFM, beyond what Grant-in-Aid covers.

Our key innovations so far include:

• Improved FreeStation.org open-source hardware, low-cost automatic weather stations, including instantaneous rainfall intensity and instantaneous wind gust measurement

• New FreeStation.org open-source hardware stage gauges, accurate to 1mm for measurement in small ditches and streams, including vandalism-proofing and camouflage

• New FreeStation.org open-source  hardware doppler flow loggers and associated methods for low-cost, accurate assessment of stream discharge

• New FreeStation.org open-source hardware water quality loggers for Conductivity, DO, pH, Ammonium, Flouride,  Chloride, Calcium, Nitrate, Potassium, COD, BOD, Phosphate, Turbidity 

• New FreeStation.org open-source hardware tide, wave height and wave power data loggers

• Improvements to the open-access FreeStation //Smart: datalogger management and analysis tools for integration and analysis across large sensor networks, all data are open-access here.

• Improvements to the open-access Co$tingNature/local and WaterWorld/local tools for natural flood management strategy and effectiveness assessment, including applications developed for Prittle Brook, C-X ditch and Mucking Creek. 

Contact us for further information.