We are using/working on several.

The best thing is to stop silt getting into the river in the first place. Coppicing and fencing creates a buffer strip, which slows the run off and allows the silt to drop out but what I was talking about, above was a log silt trap created on a bank, where the water runs off a sloping stone and mud track. It would otherwise just run off the track, down the bare river bank into the river. Logs are used to effectively create a dam, this one happens to be along a fence line, which will be beefed up and have chicken wire added to it so that it will trap leaves and debris and silt once the original log dam is full. The other part is to coppice the overstorey so that the bare banks and trapped silt can recolonise with grass and slow the run off further.

In stream we have installed a few small log dams on small spawning streams to back the water up and allow the silt to drop out before it can get to the spawning gravels. Sedgeking suggested this simple idea.

Soft revements, hazel, willow, thorn and other trees layed into river not only provide cover for trout and habitat for insects they also trap silt, as do well clothed river banks.

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"The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning."

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