Habitat Guide

Coastal Habitat Restoration - Towards Good Practice

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		Habitats • Grazing marsh • Reedbed • Saline lagoon • Saltmarsh • Sand & mud • Sand dune • Sea cliff • Shingle
		Reedbed • Management • Pressures • States • Routes to restoration • Restoration methods

Reedbed creation - summary

Creating new areas of reedbed involves a variety of complementary actions, which taken in sequence are:

Land forming techniques to create suitable conditions for new reedbeds;
Excavation of existing reedbed (including contouring of the surface);
Creation of ditches;
Creating water management structures;
Introducing reed seeds and plants.

Guidance: It is not clear exactly how long a new reedbed will take to develop the full complement of bird, mammal, amphibian, fish, invertebrate and plant species. The reed cover may develop relatively quickly, perhaps within 5 years, but colonisation by other species may take considerably longer.

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© English Nature, Environment Agency, Defra, LIFE and NERC 2003