Erosion Scars

There are many long stretches of erosion like this on the Lyon, again emphasizing how powerful a river this is. A river needs a certain amount of erosion to recharge itself, and in this photo, we can see that there is a very good supply of spawning gravel being eroded from the base of this scar, and that is good for the river. The soil on top of this will input fine sediment to the river and that is not so good, as this can smother otherwise good fish habitat, especially spawning gravel. A certain amount of this is natural, and does not do much in the way of damage, and this type of erosion can provide homes for birds like sand martins. We are logging all these erosion scars, some of which we might be able to stabilize, maybe by fencing or tree planting. If the survey is repeated in future, we will be able to see if this sort of thing is increasing or not. We might expect it to increase as winter rainfall increases and floods get more common. We will probably try to commission a report to give some guidance on this type of issue.