The CLRs Dr Laurie Friday will be one of eight expert speakers at the Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA) Environment Day 2026 for lowland water managers.
This annual event provides a valuable opportunity for those involved in managing, maintaining, and governing lowland watercourses and freshwater environments. The day will feature talks covering topics from eels and invasive species to beavers and landscape recovery, offering practical insights to support statutory duties, best practice approaches, and local environmental enhancement.
Laurie brings a wealth of experience in freshwater and Fen ecology, having worked extensively with Cambridge Zero and the CLR’s projects across the Fens. She has explored the multifunctional role of drainage ditches, recognising their potential as biodiversity refuges and water storage areas, alongside challenges such as greenhouse gas emissions and invasive species dispersal.
“The CLR Ditch Interest Group continues to explore different aspects of that Cinderella of habitats: the humble ditch,”
Laurie explains.
“Several members took part in a recent conference in Liverpool led by Prof Mike Peacock which resulted in a paper examining what is known about greenhouse gas emissions from ditches. We concluded that these emissions (like many aspects of ditch ecology) are generally overlooked or underestimated, and we identified a number of crucial knowledge gaps and areas of uncertainty.”
At ADA Environment Day, Laurie will share insights from this work and discuss approaches to enhancing the multifunctional role of ditches across the landscape, showing how environmental, agricultural, and policy goals can be reconciled in lowland water management.