Drain

I've posted about the bog woodland restoration program and the returning of the forests streams to their pre-Victorian meandering courses. I usually post an image of the restored meanders resplendent in diversity, now here's an example of what many of them looked like before. As you can see, a far more sterile environment. Notice the steep cut banks on which for the most part little is growing and where stuff is growing there's limited diversity. Notice the bare gravels, dry and lifeless in the summer season, where as the flow in restored streams may decline, on the whole they continue to flow and sustain plant communities. These drains may well have been functional and served their purpose, though as you can see didn't make too good an environment of diversity. Nor are they aesthetically pleasing as the gentle meandering stream.