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Oliver Bramley (PhD Chemistry) talks to us about his work on the University’s Natural Flood Management (NFM) project at the Leeds Brownlee Triathlon Centre.

My name is Oliver, and I am a Chemistry PhD student. My degree is computer based and theoretical, so I am very happy to be part of the sustainability team working on a project which is on a completely different scale.

I am working on the Natural Flood Management project at the Brownlee cycle track. The project will see over 2000 trees being planted which will completely transform, not only, the look of the site but how it disperses rainwater into the nearby beck. Flooding in Leeds is a serious problem; I’ve lived in Leeds since 2014 and have seen multiple serious floods in the city. Managing how water runs off into waterways upstream can have huge knock-on effects further down the river. The planting of trees should slow water runoff by retaining water in the soil, which is held together better by their root systems. There is a lot of rain runoff at the site because it is located near the university sports pitches which has led to local flooding when there is heavy rain. The project forms a part of a wider strategy across the Yorkshire region which is seeing tens of thousands of trees and other natural flood defences being put in.

There are obviously other benefits to planting lots of trees beyond water management. My job is to help plan and design various monitoring projects to record other benefits of the tree planting. There is a pond on-site, and I am working to get existing data collection equipment reporting to a publicly available online dashboard. We are also hoping to integrate weather and air quality data onto this dashboard to see how the new trees effect this over time. I am also tasked with helping set up biodiversity monitoring surveys at the site. The new variety of habitats should encourage everything from invertebrate to bird life onto the site. This is an exciting project and the research done here could help other natural flood management projects be implemented across the country.

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