Research

Floodplain Meadows Partnership.
The ecohydrology of wildflower meadows; how they function; what they reveal about their history and can we re-create them?

Floodplain meadows are one of the UK’s most biodiverse and rare habitats. They can contain up to 40 different plant species per square metre and act as a key habitat for a host of invertebrates and birds. Some meadows contain rare species such as the snake’s head fritillary, now found on only a handful of sites in the UK.





These meadows have evolved through an annual cycle of traditional agricultural management, with the meadows ‘shut up’ until summer, whereupon they were cut for hay. The hay from floodplain meadows was valued particularly highly by the agricultural community due to its nutrient rich status. Being on floodplains, these meadows receive high levels of natural fertilizer! This high fertility leads to a continuation of the grass growth after the hay cut, and so hay cutting is followed by grazing into the autumn. Such meadows would have been the mainstay of winter feed for livestock.

However is estimated that the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows and those that are left remain under threat from development, aggregates extraction, flood alleviation, inappropriate management and climate change.

The Ecology group at the Open University is interested in how the plant communities on floodplain meadows respond to different environmental conditions. Each different plant species has a different tolerance to environmental stresses and by observing distributions in the field we have been able to quantify these tolerances.  Using a database of species occurrence linked to soil hydrology, we have been able to predict plant community changes based on changes in soil water and soil nutrient status.

This information can also be used to predict if sites are suitable for meadow restoration, as well as to guide management on existing sites.

The Floodplain Meadows Partnership, hosted by the Open University has brought together a range of organisations and individuals involved in the management and restoration of floodplain meadows. The Partnership is committed to undertake long-term monitoring on some of the best remaining sites across England and Wales in order to develop our knowledge of how these meadows change in response to our changing environment and encourage their restoration and re-creation.

The sharing of information with all those involved in the conservation, management and restoration of floodplain meadows is crucial to the success of the project. We are running short courses, workshops and a conference on Floodplain Meadows and providing publications and literature that summarise the latest research findings.

For further information, please see www.floodplainmeadows.org.uk