Targeting areas for the restoration and re-creation of coastal and floodplain grazing marsh (ENRR332)

The grazing marsh habitat represents a characteristic landscape, made up of lowland wet grassland, and other features such as surface drainage channels. This landscape was created by the early stages of agricultural reclamation of floodplain and coastal wetlands (Mountford and Sheail, 1989), but a substantial proportion of the original area has since been subject to further drainage and converted to intensive arable land (Mountford, 1994), The nature conservation value of grazing marsh lies not only in its important populations of wetland birds, but also in invertebrates and plants, especially those associated with the channels, The continued survival of this diverse wildlife requires integrated management of water-levels, grazing, and grass-cutting…