Water quality in England and Wales has improved for the nineteenth year in a row the Environment Agency announced today. Seven out of 10 English rivers and nine out of 10 Welsh rivers achieved what is termed “very good” or “good” status in terms of chemical and biological water quality in 2008. Wildlife has been returning to some of these rivers. 50 years ago, no salmon were seen on the River Tyne, but already this year more than 10,000 have been recorded migrating up river. Meanwhile otters have this year been recorded in both Greater Manchester and the lower Thames for the first time in 40 years. After moving into Sussex this year, otters can now once again be found in every English county.

However, only five of the 6,114 rivers in England and Wales are in pristine condition, and more than three-quarters are expected to fail new European quality standards. The European Water Framework Directive, which became law in the UK in 2003, sets even higher quality standards, using a wider and more sophisticated range of more than 30 different measures. Only 26% of rivers in England and Wales are classified as “good” under the new requirements, and only five satisfy the highest standards. These are in remote areas of Northumberland and Wales.

Under the new standards, 117 rivers are classified as being in bad condition, ranked on a par with the dirtiest rivers in eastern Europe, a further 742 are considered to be in “poor condition” and 3,654, or 60%, are in “moderate” condition. This presents a headache for the government because it is legally required by Europe to ensure that 95% of all British rivers are in “good” ecological condition by 2015. At the present rate of improvement, only a further 5% will meet the conditions by 2015. This could eventually leave Britain open to unlimited fines and court cases on a European level.

Lakes are faring no better, with only one out of 762 English and Welsh lakes considered to be of high status, and seven considered “bad”. None were named by the agency but it admits nearly 70% of lakes are in line to miss the targets.
It is estimated that it could cost £9bn to get 95% of UK rivers to “good” status by 2015. If, as expected, this proves impossible, the EU allows interim targets to be set for 2015 and 2021.

The government is currently preparing its River Basin Management Plans, which will be published on 22 December 2009. These will outline the targets and methods used to improve water quality in 11 catchment areas. A six-month consultation took place on the proposed plans earlier in the year. A coalition of major NGOs declared that the proposals showed ‘an unacceptably weak level of ambition’. Perhaps the EU will help the UK become more ambitious.

For further details, visit the ‘Our Rivers’ website.

Last week the BES hosted a fascinating workshop on the development of the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), in conjunction with the UK Biodiversity Reseach Advisory Group (UK-BRAG). A morning of presentations and discussion were followed with lunch and an opportunity for networking, before break-out groups met to consider various aspects of this exciting new undertaking.

The NEA is the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society and continuing economic prosperity. It is partly a direct consequence of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), for the Environmental Audit Committee recommended that it would be good to do a similar process for the UK.

Professor Steve Albon, Joint Co-Chair of the NEA, presented first, providing a very useful overview of how the NEA intends to go about its work. Working within the conceptual framework of sustainable development, the NEA will look at seven broad habitats (following the habitat classification used by the Countryside Survey) and four ecosystem services, and study how they all interact. The whole of the UK’s terrestrial, freshwater and marine ecosystems will thus be covered, and there will then also be a biodiversity synthesis, as well as a UK, national and regional synthesis.

Some of the major questions to be addressed in the Assessment revolve around valuation. Dr Melanie Austen of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory outlined the results and lessons learnt from a valuation study of the UK marine environment. She gave examples of valuation, fishing for instance being valued at around ₤600 million, leisure & recreation at roughly ₤11.7 billion, though stressed that there are both monetary and non-monetary types of valuation which can be applied. Valuation methodology is still being developed, and it is rarely possible to capture all values accurately. Moreover, whilst monetary values are very useful in order to get policymaker attention, non-monetary values are very politically important- showing politicians that the public actually cares about the environment is crucial.

The final presentation of the morning session was given by Paul Morling from the RSPB, who surveyed the policy options which could be employed in the light of the NEA report. He suggested one of the Assessment’s most valuable contributions might be in terms of ‘trade-offs’, helping illuminate the often opaque trade-offs that policymakers must decide between. For example, if in order to restore a lowland heath it is proposed to remove the pine trees, whilst the biodiversity values will be positively affected, but the carbon values of the heath will be negatively hit. How can we decide between these values in an informed manner? The NEA will hopefully be help to shed some light on this and other difficult questions faced by policymakers, and may be particularly relevant given the upcoming focus on cost-cutting and efficiency savings which will undoubtedly preoccupy the next Government. It is hoped that the NEA will help highlight the place of the environment in any such debate.

The outlook for endangered albatross species has dramatically improved, thanks to the success of an international conservation programme implemented by the RSPB and Birdlife International.

The Albatross Task Force (ATF) was established in 2006 in order to reduce the number of accidental albatross deaths caused by long-line fishing. At the time, it was estimated that one bird was killed every five minutes from long line fishing, and 19 of the 22 albatross species were under threat from extinction.

The birds were dying because they were taking bait from fishing lines fed into the sea from boats fishing for tuna or swordfish. Once they swallowed the bait, they would become caught on the hook, dragged underwater and drown.

Specialist instructors from the ATF went out with fishermen and taught them techniques that would stop the birds becoming entangled. They were encouraged to fish at night, weight their lines and attach streamers to the back of vessels to scare the birds away. Government legislation also played its part by stipulating that no more than 25 birds could be caught as “by-catch” during trips.

The programme has been heralded as a resounding success, and has reduced deaths by up to 85% in some locations.

Dr Ross Wanless, coordinator of the Birdlife programme in Africa, said: “Changing entrenched attitudes and practices is a slow process, but the ATF has shown that by working with government and industry, change is possible.”

Whilst the 19 species are not freed from the threat of extinction yet- many are still snagged by trawlers, breeding is slow and habitats are endangered – the campaign is likely to have made a remarkable impact on their population stability and its success cannot be understated.

Learn more about the ‘Save the Albatross’ Campaign here.

Read more about this story at the BBC News website and the Times News website.

At a recent meeting in the House of Commons, Chairman of the Environment Agency (EA) Lord Chris Smith, outlined plans to improve the EA’s delivery functions throughout his tenancy as Chair.

Lord Smith described the EA as an “unusual body” and a “diverse beast,” insofar as it is “part deliverer, part regulator and part adviser.”

The EA is said to be fairly bureaucratic at the moment, and Lord Smith is optimistic bureaucracy can be reduced, with more resources allocated to delivering EA objectives.

There has reportedly been some opposition from EA Officers towards moves to incorporate micro-hydro-electric generators in river systems. As Lord Smith pointed out, the need to combat climate change through reducing emissions must be balanced with other concerns. Some researchers believe that sensitive use of small hydro-electric installations would have a limited impact on the ecology of the river system, and this initiative will doubtlessly be explored further.

Lord Smith mentioned the need to improve communications with local communities. Local knowledge holds immense value in terms of setting planning and conservation objectives, and must be considered critically alongside scientific recommendations.

Touching on the subject of the third runway evidenced Lord Smith’s genuine commitment to social, ecological and environmental concerns. Aside from the issue of increased greenhouse gas emissions, Nitrogen pollution from emissions already presents a very real and serious health hazard to residents proximal to Heathrow. A third runway would massively increase the output of harmful noxious gases such as Nitrogen dioxide and breach European Environmental safe emissions limits.

In terms of Climate Change, the EA’s primary responsibility is to help those unable to cope with the consequences. Lord Smith backed the use of Carbon & Capture and Storage technology in new coal-fired power stations, although he recognised the existing shortcomings in available technology.

Speaking of successes, Lord Smith announced success in reducing input of pollutants to the environment, highlighting a 59% and 48% reduction of Mercury and Cadmium respectively, to our freshwater systems over the last year.

In terms of regulating polluters, Lord Smith expressed the need to pursue the “bad guys”, i.e. the worst polluters, with more frequent visits from EA officers, whilst reducing inspections to companies and individuals showing marked improvements.

When asked on how to bridge the gap between EA ‘field agents’ and policy-makers, Lord Smith said that The Environment Agency will be a statutory consultee of the Planning Act. This will hopefully streamline communication

The talk was broad in scope, President-elect Barack Obama even got a look-in (i.e. alluding to Obama’s policy plans to Ministers can be an effective persuasive tool!). Overall the outlook for the EA looks set to be very positive whilst Lord Chris Smith remains as Chair.

Check out the EA’s website here for further news and updates.

Seasons Greetings from the BES Science Policy Team to readers of the Blog!

The River Evenlode, Oxfordshire: Image courtesy of the author, Charlie Butt

Today marks the launch of the new Defra Initiative: “UK Environmental Observation Framework,” aimed at helping researchers access information about a whole range of monitoring activities that are ongoing.

Researchers often remark that there is too little coordination between monitoring efforts – this being an issue highlighted at the recent BES-Defra workshop on Modeling Climate Change Impacts on Biodiversity. The new initiative looks as though it will contribute to addressing this problem.

The launch was marked by presentations from chief scientific advisor Professor Bob Watson, Alan Thorpe the chief executive of NERC, Professor Maggie Gill, Chief Scientific Adviser, RERAD, Scottish Government and Doug Wilson, Head of Monitoring Assessment, Environment Agency.

The Environmental Research Funder’s Forum (ERFF) outline the theme of the initiative with the following summary:

“[ERFF aim to] articulate a vision and a high-level plan to define and resolve UK environmental monitoring issues, so improving our ability to understand the natural environment and address current and future environmental policy priorities for economic benefit and quality of life.”

If you are interested in getting involved in the monitoring programme or find out more about it please contact Beth Greenaway: bethg@erff.org.uk