Could the return of beavers upstream of where you live have a positive effect on the value of your house or the cost of your home insurance?
It sounds fanciful that a colony of semi-aquatic rodents could achieve something like this, but they are certainly part of a broader flood prevention jigsaw puzzle. Having been extinct from Britain for around 400 years, these furry mammals are once again starting to flourish in rural England and Scotland, thanks to dedicated beaver release projects.
One organisation running such projects is Forestry England. After successful enclosed trials in 2018 and 2019, it started releasing Eurasian beavers into the wild in 2024. Similar work is being done by the National Trust, Natural England and Forestry and Land Scotland, among others. In fact, Scotland is more than a decade ahead of England on bringing back beavers, which is why it now has a wild beaver population of around 2,000 compared to just 500 south of the border.
“Beaver introduction was first mooted to Scottish Natural Heritage in 1995. Perhaps we looked at the success of the Scottish Beaver Trial and were inspired to try it here,” says Andrew Stringer, head of environment and nature recovery at Forestry England.
So why, out of all the once thriving but since vanished inhabitants of the British Isles, were beavers chosen for a return? “The species that arguably has the most impacts on its wider environment and the most positive impacts from a nature perspective are beavers,” says Stringer. They are the archetypal ecosystem engineer, they're hugely influential [on their surroundings].”
It might seem contradictory that Forestry England are so interested in the proliferation of an animal that spends its time felling trees. But beavers are experts in woodland management, especially along watercourses – if anything, they are providing free labour in return for bed and board. On top of the flood prevention benefits, they are boosting the biodiversity of the areas they return to by creating new wetland habitats for other creatures to thrive in.
By managing watercourses, damming streams and slowing the flow of rivers, beavers are doing valuable work that could make a difference to our towns and cities in the event of heavy rainfall. Because when the rain pours down, if just a fraction of it is diverted by dams that could be the difference between an urban river bursting its banks or not.
Beavers are interconnected with other climate adaptation and water attenuation work being done, from depaving to major multimillion pound infrastructure flood defence projects. Water levels are rising, heavy rainfall is becoming more common and our built environment needs suitable protection.
Their benefits aren’t limited to flood prevention either, but drought and wildfire reduction too. Keeping more water in forests in the summer, through the creation of wetlands, makes it harder for fires to grow. Wildfires especially can be a huge danger to homes and human life, spreading rapidly through dry growth and woodlands.
“We can't stop water falling from the sky, but we have to stop it arriving in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Philip Wilbourn FRICS, Wilbourn & Co
Beaver in a pond at Cropton Forest. Image courtesy of Sam Oakes, Forestry England
Beaver facts
- There are two existing species of beavers – Eurasian and North American
- Eurasian beavers commonly weigh between 18-30kg
- They have orange teeth caused by the iron in their enamel, which makes their teeth strong enough to chomp through wood
- Beavers can hold their breath underwater for up to 15 minutes
- They are vegetarian and their favourite wood is aspen and willow
Source: World Wildlife Fund for Nature
Both videos show beavers in Foresty England's enclosure at Cropton Forest in North Yorkshire
The financial argument for beavers
“The cost of reintroducing beavers could have an absolutely disproportional benefit to asset values,” argues Philip Wilbourn FRICS, a chartered environmental surveyor and leading authority on flood risk management, who assisted with the RICS consumer guide to flooding. “That little dam that they're building, that colony that they're creating upstream in a tributary that runs into a river could have a huge effect downstream on the urban fabric.”
Wilbourn is no stranger to flooding himself, having experienced first-hand the Sheffield flood of 2007, in which two people died and £3bn worth of damage was caused – including to his own business premises.
He’s keen to point out that beavers are just a part of the flood prevention solution and will only work where the climate and topography is suitable, but he’s in no doubt about the positive impact they can have.
The financial impact of reduced flood risk is felt on both a house-by-house scale and a broader national policy scale. “If you have two properties that are exactly the same but one floods and one doesn't, one's going to be worth more than the other,” says Wilbourn. A recent survey by the insurer Aviva found that one in nine new homes in England are built in areas of flood risk.
On a larger scale, “the Bank of England is demanding that banks and financial institutions quantify their exposure to climate change and the existential risk posed by environmental factors,” he adds.
“We are going to face a world where insurance is a decider on property investment. And we will see areas become flood ghettos because people can't afford the insurance to live there.”
Repeated flooding and the damage it causes, is not only expensive financially, but takes a toll mentally. Wilbourn says he worked on a research project with the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) that highlighted the huge amount of stress and mental health problems that happen after a flood.
In one Welsh street that has flooded repeatedly in recent years, the local council is going to buy 16 homes for £2.57m and demolish them rather than try to stem the tide with flood defences. Describing her reaction to local weather forecasts that predict heavy rain, resident Paige Didcote said her “anxiety was through the roof”. Neighbour Paul Thomas said: "We watch a weather report and our whole world crumbles around us – it's taken a toll on our health.”
“Beavers are the archetypal ecosystem engineer, they're hugely influential” Andrew Stringer, Forestry England
Beaver dams in the Forest of Dean. Images courtesy of Forestry England
Not everyone loves beavers
While it might seem like beavers are a huge net positive for areas they are released into, that’s not always agreed upon by everyone. Forestry England engages with local communities before proposing a beaver release plan and there are usually some objections.
“You will always get passionate local wildlife people, enthusiasts who are worried about impacts on their species group of choice,” says Stringer. “Beavers are vegetarian, so they don't eat fish, but someone might be concerned about the dams impeding the migration of salmon and trout.”
But as he points out, salmon, trout and beavers have lived alongside each other for millions of years. “They are co-evolved, co-adapted, and we expect negative impacts to be extremely rare,” he says.
A more likely issue with beavers is that they aren’t only going to build dams and manage waterways where they are initially released. They could move a few miles along a river and create a dam that floods a road or blocks a drainage ditch on a floodplain. Or, as has happened in the Netherlands, dig 17-metre-long tunnels in flood dykes that puts them at risk of collapse.
In a country where a quarter of the land sits below sea level and is highly dependent on its flood defences, that could be disastrous. Which is why culling of the animals is now permitted in the north of Netherlands, as a method of controlling the country’s 7,000-strong beaver population.
And while England only currently has a beaver population in the hundreds, this is a situation it could have to deal with one day too. Based on the current success of beaver projects and population increase, Stringer believes that “in 100 years there will be beavers in every catchment in England” and we might want them in some catchments sooner for the benefits they bring.
In the UK, flooding causes £2.6bn of immediate physical damage to property and infrastructure each year. This is expected to rise to £3.6bn by 2050, according to the report From Risk to Resilience by policy research agency Public First, based on Environment Agency figures.
“As sea levels rise and the rate of rainfall increases, flooding in urban areas is going to be an increasingly major problem,” says Wilbourn. “We can't stop water falling from the sky, but we have to stop it arriving in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
