The River Test is world famous; considered the cradle of English fly fishing and epitomising the chalk stream experience. Just the mention of its name conjures images of gin-clear water, bright, clean gravel, lazily waving Water crowfoot (more commonly known by its Latin name, Ranunculus), and sturdy, speckled, almost-golden chalk stream Brown trout.
There are of course, sections of the river that fully live up to this reputation; exhibiting truly archetypal chalk stream characteristics. Beautiful reaches that provide both vigorously healthy habitat and, for those that seek it, an unmatched angling experience.
However, the unfortunate truth is that for vast lengths of the Test, this iconic image has passed from reality, to legend, to myth. Riverbeds of bright flint gravel have been lost under dark silt, strewn with nodules of ‘tufa’ (calcium carbonate precipitant). Ranunculus has been unceremoniously usurped by ribbon weed and other species that favour sluggish, silty conditions. Even that most fundamental of chalk stream characteristics, thirst-inducing, gin-clear water, can be scuppered by slightest bed disturbance upstream. Riverfly abundance appears to be dwindling and water quality issues are far from solved.
Many of the woes that beset the Test can be (and often are) manageable. Good management can keep the bed clean, the banks rich and diverse, the weed growing and the fish rising. This management is hard, physical work, undertaken by committed and passionate people. People endeavouring to balance the ecology of the river with the economics of (sometimes highly commercial) fisheries. As summarised by a keeper I know, it’s a job of “doing the best you can, with the water you’ve got”.
And that is the crux of it. The health of any river, especially a chalk stream, is intrinsically bound to its flow. Strong flows dilute pollutants, scour away excess silt, promote weed growth and keep the river cool, oxygenated and full of living things. A well-flowing river is forgiving. It will accept a bit of gardening, a bit of angling pressure, even the odd mill, gauging weir or other more intractable impoundment. Flow papers over the cracks, glosses over the stains, props up the wobbly table. We need it more, yet have it less, than ever before.
Being aquifer-fed, chalk streams are inherently stable systems. Water levels take a long time to rise and fall. In an age before large-scale aquifer abstraction, even drier winters may have sufficiently charged aquifers to provide steady flows through the summer. Before modern urbanisation and intensive agriculture, winter runoff would probably have less of an impact on flooding. Channels cut to receive average flows would be more likely to hold up through both summer and winter.
This does not mean that flows did not previously vary (far from it). Indeed, water would be harnessed, diverted, backed-up, flushed through and near-constantly adjusted by an army of millers, ‘drowners’ (water meadow managers) and estate workers. These people’s livelihoods depended on knowing the annual fluctuations of the river and timing the adjustments of their control structures accordingly.
Nowadays, the water mills and water meadows do not function, the former converted to picturesque homes, the latter to modern agriculture. Many of the channels and structures designed to work historic flows remain, but the finely balanced, constantly changing cycle of their operation has been consigned to history. That of course was not the end of the story and a great many travesties were inflicted upon the chalk streams in the name of ‘land drainage’ in the mid twentieth century. Channels would be artificially widened and deepened to drain winter water (previously destined to flow over water meadows) off the land and out to sea as efficiently as possible.
Our chalk streams are human-made, artificial rivers. To restore one to its original state would probably mean reverting it to a floodplain-wide braided marsh and willow carr landscape – a step too far for all but the most fervently zealous of rewilders! However, in many cases, the channels no longer match the average flows prevalent at their construction. This might be because the flow regime changed, the channel was rendered over-size, or simply that the average flows have dwindled as aquifer or surface water abstraction has increased. Whatever the backstory, much of the Test, like so many of our chalk streams is now incredibly vulnerable to low flow events.
In 2020 we are facing a water crisis. In 2019, many supposedly perennial chalk streams in the South East dried up completely. The buffer afforded by the very wet winter of 2019/20 has been rapidly eroded by a record-breaking hot and dry spring. Weather is increasingly extreme and our fragile chalk streams, designed for a different time and outpaced by the rate of change around them, are ill-equipped to adjust.
To know the Test in 2020 is to know hope and despair in (almost) equal measure. Despair in knowing the potential impacts of a serious drought, and hope in knowing that we absolutely can do something about it.
In 2018, Southern Water acknowledged that the only way supply could meet domestic demand during drought conditions would be by abstracting more water than licenced from sites in the Test and Itchen catchments. This would likely damage the highly protected ecology of the Candover Brook, River Itchen and lower Test. Plans have been drawn up to remedy the underlying situation, including surface water reservoirs and desalination plants. However, it will be 10 years before such schemes are expected to be ready.
In the meantime, under a ‘Section 20’ agreement with the Environment Agency, Southern Water have agreed to fund mitigation measures to limit damage to species and habitats potentially impacted by drought abstraction. Additionally (and this is where Wessex Rivers Trust comes in), Southern Water are also required to compensate for any potential impacts to Special Areas of Conservation (SACs).
