Lowering banks
If a stream can spread out during high water, this provides water storage, slows the flow, increases infiltration and reduces flooding downstream. However, due to various (human-induced) factors, the difference in level between the stream bed and the valley floor at the Geul and the Gulp has become so great that the water no longer spreads out as quickly, except during extremely high-water levels (such as in 2021). In some locations (at local bottlenecks), it can help if the bank is lowered and, at the site of a silted-up meander, a channel or channel-like depression is dug into which the water can flow. These lowered sections are returned to nature.
Natural solutions
- Developing natural grasslands
- Developing natural forests
- Food forest
- Making space for beaver activity
- Making room for natural floodplains
- Making room for meandering
- Raising the stream bed
- Lowering banks
- Removing drainage systems
- Planting scrub hedges and copses
- Standard orchard
- Wide infiltration strip
- Grafts
- Swales
- Keylines
- Converting (maize) fields on slopes into grassland or woodland
- Wadi
- Intercepting runoff on (sunken) roads