Saltmarsh restoration in Essex

Essex Wildlife Trust has partnered with the Environment Agency to restore valuable saltmarsh and coastal defences in the Blackwater Estuary at Essex Wildlife Trust’s Abbotts Hall Farm nature reserve.

Abbots Hall Farm links together over 3,000 acres of wildlife rich land along a 25km stretch of Essex coast.

The pilot project involves installing coir structures within selected creeks to encourage sediment accumulation and plant growth, protecting the saltmarsh habitat.

The existing managed retreat is transforming 50 hectares of previously arable land into saltmarsh abundant with wildlife, particularly migrating birds.

The extent and quality of Essex Saltmarshes has been declining due to development, rising sea levels and an increase in the frequency of storms seen in recent years. Saltmarshes provide ecosystem services such as reducing flood risks and the effects of storm surges as well as acting as a carbon sink. A hectare of saltmarsh can capture two tonnes of carbon a year and lock it into sediments for centuries, but we are losing nearly 100 hectares of saltmarsh a year. Coastal realignment could restore much of it and reduce flooding and erosion.

These key habitats also provide an important feeding ground and refuge for nationally scarce plants, insects, juvenile fish species such as bass and gobies and internationally important numbers of birds, such as shoveler and dark-bellied Brent geese.

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