Welcome to NaturalRivers.com

We are a company dedicated to working with nature to encourage natural riverbank regeneration. This encompasses traditional and modern riverbank repair techniques, including geotextiles and bio-engineering. We also undertake ecological surveys and monitoring of plant, invertebrate and fish species, this information is then used to draw up a detailed management plan to carry out the improvements.
Woodland Management is another area we are involved in, mainly traditional coppicing of hazel woodlands which is then bundled and tied, creating faggots for use in river restoration.

These practices complement each other and create diverse habitats and communities for a wide range of animals, plants and insects. In the Hazel coppice species in national decline, such as dormice and rare butterflies, are encouraged by the variety of habitat and light levels. Using faggots along the riverbank creates habitats for species like the water vole, which is also in national decline and which harder engineering methods would interfere with. This also gives emergent vegetation (e.g. Reeds, Irises and Sedges) a foothold along the riverbanks.

Typical River Management Issues

  • Bank erosion and stability
  • Low ecological amenity or recreational value, due to:-
    • Lack of bankside or instream habitat or cover for insects, fish, birds and mammals.
    • Excessive weed growth.
    • Excessive siltation and loss of spawning areas.
    • Previous unsightly construction.
Collapsing bank work
An example of collapsing bank work

An example of an eroded bank creating silt build-up in-stream resulting in loss of a variety of species' habitats
An eroded bank



Contact Us

matt@naturalrivers.com dan@naturalrivers.com

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