Final Report: Skell Valley Catchment Scale Monitoring

This report summarises the monitoring of the Skell Valley river catchment, North Yorkshire, UK, before, during, and after installation of a range of NFM intervention and Nature Based Solutions (NBS). The River Skell is a flashy system. That is, there is a rapid response in river character (level and sediment load) to precipitation events. This short response time means downstream sites, including Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, are vulnerable to flooding events. One major storm, Storm Barbet, impacted the catchment during the monitoring programme, which allowed assessment of a large precipitation event on river and catchment function. The data presented in this report represents an unusually long duration monitoring programme, which links meteorological, hydrodynamic, and sediment data, alongside a comprehensive water quality dataset that was achieved through a sampling programme by volunteers. These resulting large dataset allows deeper understanding of the dynamics of the River Skell, and establishes a reference framework to assess the impacts, and benefits, of NFM and NBS installations over a long monitoring period.