Ambitious recovery programme launched as unprecedented decline in pearl mussel highlights fragile River Dee
DeeWatch December
The Easter Beltie Restoration project returned a straightened agricultural stream to a natural meandering course, to improve habitats for nature and boost climate resilience. The project was the only one of its kind in the north east of Scotland, and has created a new, two-kilometre stretch of meandering river corridor flowing through ten hectares of floodplain, rich in habitats where nature can thrive.
The Beltie Burn near Torphins, a tributary to the River Dee, was first engineered in the mid-18thth century for agricultural improvements and to make way for the Deeside Railway line. The Beltie Burn was once a twisting channel flowing through low-lying wetlands, but the stream’s middle reaches near the old Deeside line were heavily straightened, embanked, widened and deepened and this degraded habitats for fish, plants and invertebrates. The channel contained far too much silt and sand, offering no salmon spawning habitat and the riverside vegetation was dominated by only a few species, with the invasive plant, Himalayan Balsam, beginning to take hold. The burn was set so low in the landscape that it was completely disconnected from the floodplain, greatly reducing wetland habitat and the capacity of the whole area to store floodwaters.
The restoration reversed the previous damage and breathed life back into the Beltie. The heart of the site is a new wetland area through which the unconstrained burn meanders. Further downstream, habitats have been enriched by riverside native tree planting, with woodland and open wet ground in the connected floodplain.
Although these middle reaches of the burn were extremely degraded, the upper and lower reaches of the 20 km Beltie Burn retain many natural characteristics. By starting to restore this break in the continuity of the river system, the whole catchment will benefit. The Torphins Paths Group has been closely involved in the project to link to a plan to create a new core path path the site to Glassel and onwards to Banchory.
The benefits of the restoration are being studied by the James Hutton Institute and Napier University to evaluate the changes in the natural environment. The aim is to greatly increase habitat diversity, so that a much wider range of native species – from plants and insects to birds and mammals – can thrive at the site.
The Easter Beltie Restoration project was managed by the Dee Catchment Partnership working with the Dee District Salmon Fishery Board and the James Hutton Institute. Delivery partners were: cbec eco-engineering UK Ltd, Edinburgh Napier University, Mclntosh Plant Hire, NatureScot, the River Dee Trust, the River Restoration Centre, Scotland the Big Picture, and the Woodland Trust. The project was funded by: Aberdeenshire Council, Cairngorms National Park Authority, the NatureScot Biodiversity Challenge Fund, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and Scottish Forestry.
Work at the site began in September 2020. Groundworks were completed in November 2020.
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