Researchers say beavers are helping to create wetlands that boost drought resilience, as more than half of England currently faces drought conditions amid hot, dry weather. Dr Alan Puttock, from the University of Exeter's Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste, explained that beaver dams and canals form "complex wetlands" that hold and slowly release water, in contrast to modern landscapes that tend to be heavily drained, offering both wildlife refuge and greater resilience to flooding and drought.

Beavers, once hunted to extinction in Britain roughly 400 years ago, were reintroduced to Devon's River Otter in 2015, with four more pairs released on Cornwall's Par and Fowey rivers in February this year. Puttock said each beaver wetland pond holds around 1,000 cubic metres of water and can reduce peak flows by 30% through leaky dams, though he cautioned that a single wetland won't solve drought problems alone. He also pointed to US research suggesting such wetlands, since "water doesn't burn", could act as a firebreak against wildfires as extreme weather events increase.