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Some management guidance has been published on floodplain meadows. Additionally there are a number of research documents and scientific papers that have been published. It is not possible to reproduce all of these here, but the most relevant documents can be found by following the links below.
The Ecohydrological Guidelines for Lowland Wetland Plant Communities collated information on the environmental requirements of various wetland plant communities including MG4 and MG8 grasslands.
Some of the hydrological information produced resulted in models that indicate the optimal and sub-optimal water levels for each plant community. Similarly, tentative guidelines are given for tolerated nutrient levels. These guidelines are based on current available information, much from work in East Anglia. The Partnership hopes to update the information using a wider geographical base through development of the research work for MG4 and MG8 plant communities. Also the Environment Agency and Natural England are currently revising the guidelines to include some other wetland habitats such as dune slacks and wet heaths.
Ecohydrological Guidelines for Lowland Wetland Plant Communities (5.99 MB)
The Water Regime Requirements and Response to Hydrological Change of Grassland Plant Communities (2002) was an appraisal of botanical data from 18 sites across England supporting species rich grassland. At each site between 60 and 800 botanical positions were surveyed (total 3904 sets of data). The water regime of each botanical position was modelled and validated against dipwell observations.
Water regime was found to be one of the most important determinants of plant community composition and a range of water regimes for each community type was presented.
Ranges of phosphorus regimes were also presented and the data suggested that phosphoros levels were critical in determining community composition, whilst other soil chemistry measures did not appear to be significant.
Results are presented that summarise changes in plant communities following deliberate change in water regime.
The work was commissioned to advise Defra policy with respect to Agri-Environment scheme design.
This work was done under NERC Urgency funding last year in order to assess the impacts of the summer floods on floodplain hay meadows. This brief report summarises the findings, but does not go into great analytical detail. We hope to provide further analysis later in the year.
Impact of summer flooding on floodplain biodiversity via nutrient deposition
Richard Jefferson and Claire Pinches (Natural England) have recently had a paper on floodplain meadows published in the journal Fritillary (Number 5). This paper summarises the current status of the MG4 community, threats, management and future conservation.
It is a key document in understanding where we are with these species-rich habitats. It is available to view on the Fritillay website and by following the link below.
The conservation of flood-plain meadows in Great Britain: an overview
If water levels in Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) are to be managed effectively for nature conservation objectives, then quantitative information relating to the water-regime tolerances of vegetation is required. In order to provide this information, the relationship between species distribution and the long-term prevailing water regime needs to be understood with considerable precision. The
information must also be in a form which is transferable between sites.
To identify the water-regime tolerances of species, data were gathered from areas of species-rich lowland wet grassland throughout England. A total of 2,393 microsites were sampled, each consisting of a 1 m2 quadrat of grassland, and treated
as independent observations. At each, the species complement was recorded and the
water regime during the previous 10-20 years was modelled.
Water Regime Requirements of the Native Flora with particular reference to ESA's
