Improving river health and resilience
Cardiff researchers are transforming how we manage rivers – from nature-based flood defences and ‘invisible’ plastic detection to physics-guided AI that supports climate-resilient water management worldwide.
Rivers sit at the heart of climate resilience – carrying floodwaters, sustaining ecosystems, and supplying communities.
At Cardiff University’s Hydro-environmental Research Centre, our researchers are developing new tools to understand, protect, and restore these systems. Their work combines field measurements, laboratory experiments, computational modelling, and the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Working with partners in Shropshire, Professor Catherine Wilson and colleagues have provided some of the most detailed evidence to date on how ‘leaky barriers’ – human-made, beaver-like dams constructed from logs, branches, and other natural materials – can store and slow floodwaters.
By instrumenting over 100 barriers along several kilometres of river, the team showed that these structures can temporarily hold the equivalent of multiple Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water during storm events. This raises upstream water levels and releases flows gradually over a week or more.
Their findings demonstrate that leaky barriers are a low-cost, nature-based complement to conventional flood engineering, and particularly effective for smaller, more frequent storms.
Engineering nature-based solutions for resilient rivers
Researchers at Cardiff University are reshaping how we manage rivers and catchments – pioneering natural flood solutions, exposing hidden pollutants, and restoring ecological connectivity for future generations.
This work is helping to ensure our rivers are healthy and resilient.
-
Nature-based solutions that slow and store water
We provide real-world evidence on how leaky barriers, improved soils and restored river corridors reduce flood peaks – helping communities adopt sustainable, cost-effective alternatives to hard engineering. -
Resilience in a changing climate
Our models and demonstration sites support councils, regulators and land managers to plan for both extremes – from sudden floods to prolonged drought – using approaches that work with natural processes. -
Revealing and managing hidden pollution
Cardiff research uncovers how microplastics move through wastewater, farmland and rivers, informing policy and providing tools to monitor pollution that traditional surface-counting methods miss. -
Restoring river connectivity for wildlife
Innovative fish-passage solutions, including textured tiles tested under real conditions, are helping reconnect fragmented rivers and support the recovery of species such as the European eel.
“We need evidence-based methods that slow flows, enhance infiltration into the soil, and provide above- and below-ground storage for runoff. We need to work with landowners, farmers, and the community to undertake this feat.”
— Professor Catherine Wilson
Alongside local interventions, we are rethinking how we predict river flow at continental scales.
In collaboration with international partners, Professor Wilson has helped develop physics-guided AI models that integrate deep learning with hydrological knowledge to simulate how rainfall translates into streamflow across thousands of catchments.
Trained on extensive rainfall-runoff datasets, these interpretable models outperform many traditional approaches while providing clearer insight into why rivers respond as they do. This offers water managers and emergency planners more reliable, transparent tools for anticipating floods and droughts under changing climate conditions.
Another major focus at the University is plastic pollution in rivers and catchments. Our studies have revealed that agricultural soils across Europe may be one of the largest reservoirs of microplastics, driven by the widespread use of sewage sludge as fertiliser.
Detailed measurements at wastewater treatment plants show that vast numbers of particles are trapped in sludge rather than released in treated water. This creates a pathway from households and industry onto farmland, and, ultimately, back into rivers via runoff.
Complementary laboratory work has shown that many plastics sink, fragment, and travel below the surface, so they elude traditional surface-counting methods. By adapting sediment transport equations with new experimental data, the team has developed methods to estimate how much ‘invisible’ plastic is moving through rivers, as well as where it accumulates.
Taken together, our pioneering research is equipping policymakers, regulators, and practitioners with the evidence needed to design smarter flood defences, manage microplastic pathways, and deploy trustworthy AI tools for river forecasting.
This work is helping to secure cleaner, safer, and more resilient rivers for future generations.
Meet the team
Find out more about our research
Get our newsletters from Cardiff University's research, innovation, and enterprise leaders.
Discover more Future Generation Thinking stories
We’re designing the solutions that future generations will depend on every single day – building tomorrow’s world through innovation, collaboration, and partnerships that deliver.
