The UK’s largest coastal management scheme, carried out by Team Van Oord on behalf of the Environment Agency, has been named a finalist in the 2015 CIEEM awards.
The Steart Coastal Management Project is a finalist in the CIEEM Best Practice Award for Stakeholder Engagement. Earlier this month the same scheme won a prestigious Environment Agency Project Excellence Award.
The £21m Steart Coastal Management Project will help protect homes and businesses from flooding due to climate change and rising sea levels, and has established a new nature reserve.
The project is located next to the Severn Estuary on the Steart Peninsular, surrounded by internationally and nationally designated nature conservation areas forming part of the Severn Estuary Special Protection Area (SPA), Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).
A new channel was created to deliberately flood 300 hectares (740 acres) of land to provide much-needed habitat for wading birds and wildfowl, and for water voles and great crested newts.
CIEEM (Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management) is the leading professional membership body representing and supporting ecologists and environmental managers in the UK, Ireland and abroad. Its vision is of a society which values the natural environment and recognises the contribution of professional ecologists and environmental managers to its conservation.