Reintroduced beavers prevent urban flooding in West London by rebuilding wetlands from scratch

In October 2023, conservationists released a family of five beavers into a 20-acre urban park near West London's Greenford Tube station, which had repeatedly flooded due to climate-driven heavy rainfall. Within weeks, the beavers dammed the creek running through the former golf course, creating a pond that holds stormwater before it can overflow into the city, and diverted the creek into smaller tributaries. The project, backed by a government licence, is part of a broader effort across Britain to use nature-based engineering to adapt to more erratic and intense rainfall as the climate changes.