Since the recent flooding, the former balance between the catchment and its land use has been disrupted. Historically, extensive channel management and floodplain drainage would have been carried out to reduce the risk of flooding and to allow agricultural activities to continue.

However, changes in farming practices, additional pressures on the land, reduced financial support and tighter environmental legislation now commonly pose a barrier to many ‘traditional’ river and land management strategies.

This has lead to the local landowners and the various agencies responsible for supporting local communities and protecting the natural environment wanting to develop a sustainable management system which will support farming practices, maintain the value of the land, safeguard lives and properties and protect the natural environment.

The latter is viewed as particularly important in the Tweed system, given the various nature designations allocated to this unique environment.

The Bowmont-Glen Catchment Initiative has been designed to help combine traditional land management skills with strategic & coordinated catchment-scale planning, enabling land managers adapt traditional management techniques to make them more sustainable and compatible with modern regulatory requirements, and also to help streamline the application processes (e.g. for the Controlled Activities Regulations (CAR) in Scotland).

A critical consideration is that a coordinated approach is vital so that piecemeal works in one part of the catchment do not conflict or exacerbate conditions elsewhere in the catchment

In this way, the works will not only be effective, but environmental damage can be minimised and a flexible, coordinated approach will also mean that the catchment’s response can also be adaptable to cope with potential future changes in climate and land use; making the proposed catchment management techniques more sustainable in future rural landscape.