River South Esk restoration: a straightened burn gets its floodplain back

A straightened stretch of March Burn in Glen Clova has been returned to a longer, bending channel and reconnected with its floodplain. The work is one part of a completed River South Esk project that also created 25 hectares of wetlands and expanded native woodland across the Angus glens.

March Burn used to run between flood embankments. Water could move quickly through the engineered channel, but the burn had little contact with the land beside it. Its old bends, pools and wet ground had largely disappeared.

That geometry has now changed. Contractors removed the embankments and re-meandered 244 metres of the burn, using its historical course as a guide. The new route is longer and less uniform, with space for water to spill onto the floodplain during high flows.

It is a modest length of watercourse inside a much larger catchment, yet the intervention is easy to see and explain: the burn has been given room to behave more like a burn again.

March Burn now follows a longer route

A natural upland watercourse rarely runs as a straight, even-width drain. Bends slow some flows and speed others. Pools, riffles and shallow margins create different conditions for fish and invertebrates, while contact with the floodplain allows water and sediment to spread beyond the channel.

At March Burn, realignment increased the channel length and removed the banks that had separated it from roughly two hectares of adjoining land. The River South Esk Catchment Partnership expects the change to improve physical habitat for salmonid fish and aquatic invertebrates, as well as reducing pressure during spate events.

Those benefits are not yet a measured result. Re-meandering changes the physical conditions first. Surveys of flows, habitat and species will show whether the new channel performs as intended through wet winters, dry spells and successive breeding seasons.

Wetlands now cover 25 hectares across three sites

The project also created or enhanced wetland systems at three sites in Glen Clova. Together they cover 25 hectares, an area a little larger than 35 football pitches.

Lairds Haugh is the largest. The other restored sites include the Wheen wetland and Adielin, each adding shallow water, damp ground and more varied edges to a floodplain where connected wetlands had been missing for centuries.

The sites were chosen partly for the birds already using Glen Clova. Shallow pools and wet grass can support breeding waders and wintering wildfowl, while amphibians, invertebrates and fish use different parts of the same system. A landowner at Rottal Estate has reported more water remaining on the ground and early increases in wader numbers and breeding success, but those are initial site observations rather than a completed ecological assessment.

Holding water higher in the catchment may also help during both floods and droughts. The effect will depend on how much water the restored ground stores, when it releases it and how the sites perform during extreme weather. It should not be treated as a quantified reduction in downstream flood risk until monitoring supports that conclusion.

Woodland work reaches beyond the riverbank

The restoration extends into Glens Clova, Doll and Prosen. Final figures published by Angus Council record 8.7 hectares of riparian woodland along 17.5 kilometres of upland watercourse, 6.5 hectares of native treeline woodland and 155 hectares where native woodland is being allowed to regenerate naturally.

Riverside trees can eventually shade water, stabilise banks and provide leaves and woody material that feed a more complex river habitat. Higher on the slopes, treeline woodland and natural regeneration can connect habitats that have been divided by grazing pressure and past land management.

Natural regeneration is not the same as planting 155 hectares of mature forest. It means creating the conditions in which native woodland can return, including deer fencing and measures to reduce browsing. Growth, survival and the mix of species will determine how much woodland develops.

The project also removed invasive non-native conifer regeneration from areas of semi-natural grass, heath and montane habitat. That work protects open upland communities rather than assuming every part of the catchment should become woodland.

The finished work is smaller than the original plan

NatureScot's original public project summary set out 30 hectares of wetland and 250 metres of re-meandered burn. The completion figures are 25 hectares and 244 metres. A further proposal to install as many as 104 large woody structures in watercourses was not delivered.

The partnership attributes the shortfall to an exceptionally wet start to 2026. Its own final project page says the three wetland sites were enhanced, but the weather limited the final area and prevented the large wood work. Rottal Estate has said it hopes later funding will allow the unfinished part to return.

Recording those differences does not erase what was built. It makes the completion claim more useful: the channel, wetlands and woodland work can be separated from interventions that remain on the drawing board.

The £1.4 million delivery phase ran from 2024 to March 2026 after an earlier £140,000 development phase. It brought Angus Council, landowners, conservation bodies, engineers and contractors into one catchment project. The physical work is now in place; the long-term return depends on how it is maintained and monitored.

Monitoring now has to catch up with construction

The restoration joins two strands of climate adaptation that are often discussed separately. Wetlands and a connected floodplain may alter how water moves through the upper catchment, while woodland, heath and river habitats can give species more room to respond to changing conditions.

England's flood-defence programme shows the engineered side of resilience, where completed barriers, pumps and maintained assets protect named communities. The South Esk uses a different tool: restoring space for water before it reaches hard infrastructure downstream. Both approaches need evidence from the places where they are used.

The project also sits beside wider habitat recovery. England has recorded restoration activity across 77,638 hectares of wildlife-rich habitat, while a Welsh land purchase has reconnected the Gwenffrwd-Dinas reserve. In each case, delivery changes what can happen next without guaranteeing the ecological result.

For the South Esk, useful follow-up evidence would include water-level and flow records, channel condition, woodland establishment, wetland vegetation and repeated counts of fish, invertebrates and birds. No public figure yet shows how much flood risk, drought resilience or carbon storage the project has added.

The burn has its bends back, and water can reach the floodplain again. The next few years will show what returns with it.

Sources

• Angus Council: completion of the River South Esk restoration project
• River South Esk Catchment Partnership: Nature Restoration Fund project record
• NatureScot: Transforming Nature project plans
• River South Esk Catchment Partnership: latest restoration phase completed
• Feature image: Glen Clova by Neil Williamson, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0