Heat waves raged across much of Europe this summer, leaving many parts of the continent dry and brown.

But a couple of spots in England bucked that trend.

The Holnicote estate is part of two rewilding projects by England’s National Trust. Throughout 2026’s record heat, the rewilded areas stayed green, in large part due to their impact on local water systems.

Since 2009 the estate has been one of three Multi-Objective Flood Management Demonstration Schemes, which examine how changes in the way rivers are managed can influence the incidence and severity of flooding. Beavers were also re-introduced to assist flood reduction.

The estate’s project manager sums it up succinctly: “By reconnecting river systems with the surrounding area and creating natural sponges in the landscape, we’ve created a system that stores water during drought, keeping wetlands and the surrounding habitats healthy, and slows water during storms and periods of extreme rainfall, helping to protect villages from the risk of flooding downstream.”

Within the IB ESS context, the Holnicote would make a great little case study. It touches on rewilding for biodiversity conservation (topics 3.1 and 3.3), water systems (4.1), climate change impacts (6.2) and mitigation strategies (6.3).

It’s a great example of resilience, which we see in ESS topic 1.2 Systems.

• 1.2.16 resilience is the
  capacity to resist damage, recover from, or adapt to disturbance
• 1.2.17 diversity and storage size influence ecosystem resilience and time lags
• 1.2.18 explains how humans reduce resilience through storage and diversity loss

Check out this article from Guardian (21 August 2026) for an easy way to explore these concepts.

Happy learning!