This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Most of the countryside around the Holnicote estate in Somerset has been dry and dusty for most of the summer. But one corner remains conspicuously green.
Here in southwest England, an animal that was made extinct in Britain in the 16th century, mostly because of hunting, is making a comeback. Reintroduced just six years ago, beavers have helped turn a small watercourse on the estate into a wet meadow—a true oasis amid the parched landscape. It is an Instagram-worthy example of why reintroducing beavers to more of Britain could help us prepare for the next drought.
It shows how they reshape rivers and the surrounding land to hold water in the landscape for longer, rather than allowing it to drain away rapidly. Beavers are often called ecosystem engineers. They fell small trees, build dams and dig channels.
Water backs up behind their dams, spills across the valley bottom and soaks into the surrounding soil. Sediment and woody debris accumulate, while wetland plants establish themselves. The result can be a mosaic of ponds, channels, marshes and wet woodland.
During dry weather, this stored water can keep soil and vegetation wetter for longer. This effect was highlighted in a 2008 Canadian study that examined aerial photographs of Elk Island National Park in Alberta over 54 years. Beavers had disappeared from that landscape in the 19th century but returned in 1954.
The number of active beaver lodges, where beavers live and raise their young, was found to explain more than 80% of the variation in the area of open water. During 2002, the driest year studied, wetlands with beavers contained nine times more open water than those without them. This does not mean releasing beavers in Britain will reproduce the Canadian numbers.
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