BBC Wildlife - UK (2021-12)

discoverwildlife.com BBC WILDLIFE 19

You might not expect a scientific career

to be pursued by someone who has dyslexia

and dyscalculia, but it hasn’t stopped

Lydia Burgess-Gamble leading research

into natural flood management at the

Environment Agency.

“I only got diagnosed during the

pandemic,” she says. “I’ve had an inkling

my whole life that I was dyslexic, but I

was at school in the 80s and early 90s and

I don’t think it was what teachers looked

out for.” It was the lockdown conditions of

being confined to the desk and not getting

out into the field that brought things to the

fore – the fatigue brought on by constantly

staring at numbers and writing reports. Since

her assessment, simple changes such as the

colour of her computer screen have made life

easier. “I should have done it years

ago,” she says.

Despite not doing particularly

well at school (due to those

undiagnosed learning

difficulties), a degree in

geography led to a PhD in river

restoration and then a career

with the Environment Agency.

For the last 10 years, she

has been working in a small

MEET THE SCIENTIST

Lyd ia Bu rge s s- G a mble

A late diagnosis of learning difficulties didn’t prevent a

successful career in natural flood management

Right: Lydia works for the

Environment Agency

research team where she has developed an

evidence base to demonstrate that restoring

nature using natural flood management

approaches can help reduce the risk of

flooding and improve the environment for

people and wildlife. This strand of Lydia’s

career has culminated in a recently published

global guide to natural flood management,

compiled alongside colleagues in the USA

and Netherlands.

“The Dutch couldn’t believe we are all about

trying to hold water in catchments and slow

the flow of water, whereas they want to get it

out to sea as fast as possible in some cases,”

says Lydia.

She is currently looking at the carbon

sequestration potential of saltmarshes.

They were thought to sequester between

2-8 tonnes of carbon per hectare, but

research by Manchester Metropolitan

University at Steart Marshes in

Somerset found that the saltmarshes

there were absorbing up to 30 tonnes.

If this figure proves to be a truer

reflection, then it could have important

implications for these habitats.

“There will be more impetus as a country

to protect and preserve the saltmarshes

that we’ve got, and for the Environment

Agency to potentially build bigger

saltmarsh restoration sites.”

Andrew Griffiths

1 Starfish

2 Christmas Island red crab

3 Holly blue butterfly

4 Turkey vulture

5 Tinselfish

6 Star-of-Bethlehem plant

7 Angelfish

8 Snow goose

9 Jesus Christ lizard

10 Bell heather

10 Christmas

species

Star-of-Bethlehem flowers in early summer

Drug lord’s hippos

Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar,

who died in 1993, illegally imported

exotic animals, including African hippos.

There were originally four in his private

zoo but now a growing feral population

of more than 80 ‘cocaine hippos’ have

been taking over the countryside

near his former home and, according

to environmentalists, pose a threat

to biodiversity. So far, the Colombian

government has sterilised 24 of the

animals using an immunocontraceptive

vaccine called Gonacon.

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The invasive hippos have been thriving

Steart Marshes on

the Somerset Levels

prevents flooding and

absorbs carbon