Water is a significant and undervalued resource. It is important for many reasons including human health, farming and food, healthy wildlife and habitats, bathing, fishing and other leisure activities. We use rivers and estuaries to transport goods and for recreation. Ensuring that these areas are protected yet developed to meet the needs of society is the aim of the Water Framework Directive.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is one of the most talked about pieces of EU legislation protecting the ecological health of rivers and watercourses. The Directive transposed into UK legislation underpins the majority of water protection legislation and is unlikely to change even after Brexit. The WFD requires all waterbodies to achieve good ecological and chemical status as defined by a number of quantifiable elements:

Biological – fish, invertebrates, macrophytes, etc

Hydromorphological – channel morphology, connectivity, etc

Physio-chemical – phosphates, nitrates, dissolved oxygen, etc

Chemical – pollutants, heavy metals etc.

For developers and construction companies that operate in estuary areas, the Water Framework Directive applies to any work carried out in or near a waterbody that is likely to affect the waterbody’s Water Framework Directive status. An assessment will need to be carried out by the relevant regulator to ensure that the work is compliant and that any risks can be mitigated. This could be required on river and coastal housing developments, rail networks, port and jetty construction and marine dredging to name but a few.

The Environment Agency want to achieve ‘good’ status in at least 75% of waters by 2021, and as many as possible by 2027.

One vehicle for ensuring that the UK’s waters meets this target is the Clearing the Waters for All guidance. This is an update to the previous ‘Clearing the Waters’ guidance which only provided advice for dredging activities.

The new guidance is applicable to any development which may have an impact on a waterbody. The guidance ensures the key aspects of impacts on the aquatic environment that are monitored through the WFD are considered in a manner similar to an Environmental Impact Assessment – screening, scoping and assessment, and mitigation. Key receptors are hydromorphology, biology (habitats), biology (fish), water quality and protected areas. A new receptor for consideration and assessment is whether a project could introduce or spread Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS).

The previous iteration of this guidance for works in estuarine and marine waters only provided guidance on dredging, of which one of the main impacts is the release of heavy metals, tributyltin compounds, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). In large estuaries, such as the Thames and the Humber, this pollution came from decades of industrial activity during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Thames was once declared ‘dead’ in the 1950s due to the high levels of industrial pollution and sewage entering the waters, preventing any biological life remaining there. This pollution is still present in the estuary sediments and dredging re-suspends these within the water column which can have a negative effect on estuarine ecology up and downstream of the dredge.

As the new guidance provides advice on assessing the impacts of a wide range of activities, the need to assess whether INNS could be introduced or spread is an important consideration. With climate change the negative impact of INNS is spreading as species from warmer climates are increasingly able to tolerate living in UK waters. Limiting the spread of INNS is a worldwide issue as is evident by the ratification of the Ballast Water Convention (BWC) of which the UK is a signatory. The BWC is a key international measure for environmental protection that aims to stop the spread of potentially invasive aquatic species in ships’ ballast water and came into force on the 8th September 2017.

Assessing these two elements is what sets the WFD apart from other directives and ensures that the whole ecosystem is considered and protected. Estuaries are complex systems and require appropriate assessment to ensure that our current and future activities either maintain the current status or improve them.

Through this we can ensure that all developments are monitored and encouraged to adopt mitigation measures which will help towards achieving Good status for waterbodies in the UK.

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