Water Works

Water Works is a pioneering three-year project aiming to look at ways to develop a more sustainable future for fenland resources – its soil, water and people. The project is studying new wet farming techniques that could restore the precious peat soils of the Cambridgeshire Fens, protect our water resources and help mitigate climate change. We are using new science and technology to develop and monitor these techniques and applying for UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status to support and unite people to create a thriving fenland economy and countryside.

Committed to finding solutions to preserve this precious resource, The Wildlife Trust BCN has created the UK's first field-scale trials of wet farming to test innovative new crops for food, healthcare and industry, and to lock in carbon. 

A large part of the project is working with local farmers, food producers and landowners to create and test this new way of farming and to share any lessons learned along the way.

Crops being trialled include sphagnum moss, bulrush, reed, the wetland cereal crop sweet manna grass, and novel wetland crops of flag iris, water mint, wild celery, meadowsweet, cuckoo flower, hemp agrimony, and watercress. To learn more about each of these plants, please email to request copies of the factsheets, some of which are previewed below. 

Watch our latest video from the Water Works project, where volunteers and staff are hard at work with our wonder plant, sphagnum moss! 

Our Partners:

The project is managed by a partnership between the Wildlife Trust Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire; Cambridgeshire ACRE, The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and the University of East London and was funded by a grant from 2019-2022 by the People’s Postcode Lottery Dream Fund: a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.

Find out more about Water Works in our short film: