I enjoy Simon Cooper’s chalk stream focussed newsletters, for a variety of reasons, not least that they are well written, sardonic and interesting. No matter what he writes – unarguable truth or arrant nonsense – there’s never a dull moment.
On the 6th June Simon asked “where do all the water company fines go?”. Good question! The Conservative gov’t introduced the idea that these fines ought to go to improving the environment damaged by water company malpractice. But the sums aren’t ring-fenced. So, of the £242-million levied on the industry in 2022/23, only £11-million found its way into the Water Restoration Fund. We need to ask this question repeatedly: “who is trousering the fines?”
This week Simon is on the water company case again, lampooning Southern Water’s Tim McMahon. McMahon had claimed that the south-east of England was “drier than Istanbul”. Simon called this “Southern Water Fantasy Maths”.
“McMaths,” he wrote “who probably hones his calculating skills watching endless repeats of the numbers game on quiz show Countdown had to perform two feats of contorted logic to arrive at this implausible claim. Firstly, he had to include the population of London in his calculations. The last time I looked our capital was most definitely not in the south-eastern portion of England but hey-ho Tim perhaps you are lining yourself up for a Nobel Prize double to include geography. Secondly, Tim has used the historic average for Istanbul rainfall but compares it to one of the driest periods on record for South-East England.”
In fact Tim had said to the BBC: “If you look at the south-east of England, it’s drier than Sydney, Istanbul, Dallas, Marrakesh. We have got a very densely populated area and we need to start investing to cater for that. We need to reduce customer usage. Otherwise we will have to put other investments in place, which will not be good for customers and might not be the best thing for our environment.”
If I were to pick that statement apart, it would not be to make a petty objection to the “drier than …” statement.
The point is kind of obviously rhetorical, not literal. Tim is also clearly referring to the geographical reality, not the regional concept. London is undeniably in south-east England. It is a region in itself, however, so it is not technically in the region described as “the South-East”.
To match the pedantry I looked up the “centre of England” and found it – deemed so by Ordnance Survey – to be a village in Leicestershire called Fenny Drayton, definitely above and to the left of London.
As for the rainfall, across the south-east of England it is generally a bit less than 650mm a year. Sydney’s average rainfall is 1150mm, Istanbul’s 820mm, Dallas’ 880mm, and Marrakesh’s average is 250mm.
So, McMahon was wrong about Marrakesh.
To his wider point, however: south-east England is undeniably dry. Why object to someone saying that blindingly obvious truth?
And I’m glad Tim has pulled London into his justification, because it is around London that our chalk streams are most damaged by abstraction. That’s because there are too many tea-pots, basins, showers, loos, baths and gardens relative to how much rain falls in the Thames basin.
The Misbourne is regularly dry. As are the upper Beane and Darent. Abstraction in the upper Lea is 90% of average recharge. The poor-old Lea doesn’t really become a river until the Luton sewage works discharge.
That’s why we do need investment, a national grid for water, pipelines, reservoirs and de-salination. The lot.
The part of Tim’s statement that is of concern is the idea that if we don’t trim usage we may have to put other investments in place, which might be bad for customers.
That’s the bit to focus on.
Demand reduction per head of itself solves only one problem: demand increase through development. On it’s own trimming customer usage just allows the government to build more houses.
To see chalk streams flowing naturally again, we need to reduce the amount of water we take out of chalk aquifers. And we can’t do that without investment.
It took me a while to get my head around the concepts in this post, so bear with me. This is aimed especially at eNGOs and other campaigners for chalk streams, because the more people there are who understand this counter-intuitve idea, the better.
Here it is: you can save many chalk streams from unsustainable abstraction by conceivably using the aquifer in times of low flows and drought.
That is a head-muddler. But this idea could unlock real abstraction reduction, making the bad much better in the foreseeable future. This is far, far preferable in my view than holding out for a perfection (natural aquifers) that will never come.
It starts with my best attempt at explaining what I understand of the complexities of the interactions between groundwater, river flow and groundwater abstraction. Given that I vainly spent a long night in a hut in Iceland trying to explain the very same ideas to two angling friends of mine (they were belligerently uncomprehending in a (successful) effort to annoy me), this will be no easy task.
It is complex … kind of. It’s also quite simple really. Rather as the moon affects the tides, a simple idea leads to a complex set of manifestations.
Idea 1. Chalk streams flow from underground.
If you’re reading this blog you’ll already know that chalk streams derive most of their flow from groundwater. Rain sinks into the ground filling fractures in the underlying chalk and then lower down the slope it seeps out again as springs to create a chalk stream.
Idea 2. The level of the groundwater drives the flow in the river.
This is pretty simple. I used the bucket analogy before. Drill a single hole in the base of a bucket. Fill the bucket with water. As the bucket fills gravity drives water at an increasing velocity out of the hole. Now stop filling and let it empty. The flow diminishes to a trickle. EVERYONE gets this because it’s the same when you pee!
The rate of flow from springs in a chalk valley is driven by the hydraulic head of the groundwater above the springs. The higher the level, the greater the flow …… In more or less the same way as the water level in the bucket determines the force at which the water is driven through holes in the side of the bucket.
Idea 3. Groundwater rises in winter and falls in summer.
If you pour water into the bucket faster than water can leave it through the hole(s), the level in the bucket rises. If you stop pouring water in, the level falls as the bucket drains. This is exactly the same with a chalk aquifer. In winter, when it rains a lot, and it’s cold and the ground is wet and nothing is growing, more rain flows into the aquifer than can leave it and so the groundwater level rises. In summer, much less rain – if any – reaches the aquifer and so the groundwater level falls.
Groundwater rising. This chalk valley is dry most of the time but in February 2021 when recharge vastly exceeded discharge, it had filled to overflowing.
Idea 4. The higher the groundwater rises up the valley, the more the water pours out of it.
As groundwater level rises, stream flow increases. But not in a linear way as it would with a single hole at the base of a columnar bucket. In fact for every unit of rise in groundwater level, flow will increase by approximately X2 to 2.5 . Kind of like having twice as many holes at each level in the bucket as the level below.
There are a number of reasons for this which were debated at a recent groundwater conference. There is a summary of these ideas in Section 2 of John Lawson’s report Flow Recovery Following Abstraction Reduction which we updated following the conference and contributions from the likes of Rob Soley and Alessandro Marsili.
In short, this non-linear response is probably caused by a combination of:
• the shape of the valley – if you imagine the groundwater filling the valley bottom and hillsides, assuming a perfect V- shape valley, for every unit increase the groundwater rises the area of saturated zone exposing springs rises two-and-a-half fold. Chalk valleys are not quite V-shaped but that’s the general idea.
• the fracture density in the chalk – which increases in the valley bottoms and with altitude. At depth chalk is very solid, but in the valley bottoms and higher up the slope and where water has flowed for thousands of years, the fracture density is much greater and the flow pathways are bigger.
• layering within the chalk – chalk accreted in layers under varying climatic / geological conditions and these layers are in turn interrupted by bands of clay and flint. These layers and the varying permeability and transmissivity can influence the way groundwater reaches with the surface.
• as the surface flow pathways lengthen (winterbournes rising higher and higher up the valley) the groundwater pathways shorten.
The fracture density and layering in the chalk, the shape of the valley and the length of flow pathways, all conspire to mean that when chalk valleys fill, flows will rise exponentially.
Idea 5. The impact of a constant groundwater abstraction has a varying impact on varying flows through the year
This is where things gets a bit more discombobulating. All of the above essentially means that as groundwater rises, flows increase exponentially. If that is true, then the reverse is true. For every unit of decrease in groundwater level, flows decrease exponentially.
This means …. drum roll … groundwater abstraction (which lowers groundwater levels) has a greater impact on high flows than low flows! This is a totally skull-tightening idea. Everyone thinks the reverse must be true. But it isn’t.
Groundwater levels and groundwater abstraction
Let’s start with the impact of groundwater abstraction on groundwater levels. In a natural aquifer system, the discharge from the valley must equal the recharge over time. Natural recharge = natural discharge / Time. This stands to reason: if it didn’t the valley would either fill to overflowing or empty (because over time one would exceed the other).
Natural recharge derives from rain and natural discharge from river flow (and some evapotranspiration and flow through the ground). If I add another form of discharge in the form of abstraction, then the former natural discharge MUST go down. If it didn’t, the aquifer would progressively empty until there was no water left (an aside … hydrogeological literature generally describes anything less than draining the aquifer “sustainable”, because the aquifer is being lowered to a new dynamic balance, not mined. This is not the same as ecologically sustainable, however).
Now, as I showed with the bucket, the ONLY way in which the former natural discharge can go down is through a reduction in groundwater levels. If groundwater levels didn’t go down, then because the discharge is driven by the groundwater level the natural discharge would remain the same. As shown above, that is impossible.
Theis, the Isaac Newton of groundwater theory, wrote all this in 1940. The only way that the former natural discharge can go down (and balance the equation) he wrote, is by a reduction in the “thickness of the aquifer”.
Okay, so pause and get your head round all that.
• a single unit of rise or fall in groundwater level has a (very roughly) two-and-a-half fold impact on flows.
• ipso facto a single unit of reduction in groundwater level at high groundwater levels has a much greater impact on flows than a single unit of reduction in groundwater level at low groundwater levels.
It still hurts the head, but the discombobulating stuff above means that at high groundwater levels groundwater abstraction reduces flows by quite a lot more than 100% of the amount abstracted. And conversely, at low groundwater levels groundwater abstraction reduces flows by quite a lot less than 100% of the amount abstracted. Albeit over time groundwater abstraction must reduce flows by (essentially) 100% of the amount abstracted (it’s generally less than that for reasons that aren’t that important to the general concept, but basically because not all discharge occurs in the form of flow).
See the chart below to see what the Chalk Streams First modelling indicates % flow recovery would be if abstraction was reduced to zero in the River Ver. It varies through the flow cycle.
The above chart from Page 52 of John Lawson’s report shows that the % flow recovery (green line) at high flows (l/h end of X axis) is well over 100% and at very low flows (r/h end of X axis) is about 30% – 20%.
Idea 6. Groundwater abstraction at low flows is like a credit card.
The obvious question is … if groundwater abstraction at low flows reduces those flows by a lot less than 100% of the amount being abstracted, where the bloody hell is the rest of the water coming from? The answer: if it’s not a direct reduction from flows at the time, it is coming from aquifer storage.
This is easy to understand if you think of a large abstraction next to a small and diminishing stream. In the winter when the stream is gushing, there is more than enough water to satisfy the pumping. In the summer the stream reduces to a trickle or perhaps even dries up. But the pumping continues. At this point the abstraction is clearly not taking water from stream flow because there isn’t any. Another aside … I’ve read hydrogeologists describe this state as abstraction having “no further effect on flows”. This might be literally correct at the time. But it is misleading. The abstraction is effecting future flows.
When a chalk stream dries but abstraction continues it is clear that the abstraction is no longer subtracting water from the river’s flow, but from aquifer storage: this is basically a debt to future flows.
At times of low flow and into droughts, groundwater abstraction increasingly draws on storage, upon which future flows are built. If you unnaturally drain the aquifer, it will clearly take longer to fill when it starts raining again, all before the flows in the river can respond to the rise in groundwater levels.
Therefore groundwater abstraction at low flows is like a credit card: much more a debt against future flows than an impact on present flows. This is a key idea behind the confusing concept of using groundwater abstraction to unlock abstraction reduction .
Idea 7. If you turn off the pumps you get greater flow recovery at high flows than low flows.
Essentially what all this means is that when you cease or lower abstraction you get well over 100% of the amount no longer abstracted at high flows and much less than 100% at low flows. That is what the chart above shows on the River Ver.
Water resources needs a constant supply of water. Groundwater abstraction gives that. Chalk Streams First says “turn off (or down) the pumps and take the water from river flows much lower down the catchment”. And while you get loads of water back in winter, you get less back in summer. Generally, you must have a storage reservoir to make it work and balance out the varying recovery rates into a constant and reliable supply.
John Lawson – who came up with the Chalk Streams First idea – has long known this. We argue (with empirical evidence) that the flow recovery at low flows is actually much higher than the most pessimistic predictions claim, but nevertheless this variation in response is an issue we have to address. The answer is a reservoir.
BUT … then you get to the prolonged droughts when water companies are under real pressure. In these times, the flow recovery could conceivably drop even lower. What to do? The public must have water. This low flow recovery at very low flows in long droughts threatens the whole idea of reducing abstraction through schemes like Chalk Streams First. Especially now that we have to plan according to 1:500 year contingencies.
Idea 7. In droughts use groundwater abstraction to guarantee public water supply … so long as you’ve turned the abstraction right down to ecologically sustainable levels 95% of the time.
The insurance against the Achilles Heel of low flow recovery in a drought is a groundwater-fed public water supply scheme. There is one in existence already called the West Berkshire Groundwater Scheme (WBGWS). It is a series of wells in the Berkshire chalk that can, in extremis, be turned on and deliver a large amount of aquifer water into the Berkshire chalk streams, from where it flows to the Thames to be captured into the London reservoirs. The scheme is used very, very rarely: no more than once every 25 years. But it’s there. And it guarantees water in a drought.
The West Berkshire Groundwater Scheme wellfield: this scheme is rarely used but guarantees water in extreme droughts. It is a counter-intuitive idea that could unlock abstraction reduction in the Colne, Lea and Ouse chalk streams.
The impacts on the chalk streams are a) one of flow relief in the drought, because the flows get boosted. Albeit – and I have to emphasise this – flow augmentation in not the aim of the scheme, it is a bi-product. And b) at the end of the drought, when the pumps are turned off, the aquifer must recover before flows return to natural levels, so you get lower flows the following year.
But this is crucial: in modelled scenarios, the flows in the year of recovery are still better than they would be if abstraction ran all the time as happens at the moment in streams like the Ver, Misbourne and Beane.
So WBGWS type schemes could unlock Chalk Streams First type abstraction reduction in other settings, such as on the chalk streams of the Colne, Lea and Ouse (even the Darent). As such a scheme would insure against the public supply deficit in droughts created by replacing upper catchment groundwater abstraction with lower catchment surface water abstraction (the Chalk Streams First concept).
BUT …the Environment Agency is very cautious of such schemes
This is understandable because there have been some bad schemes in the past. But flow augmentation to compensate for the collateral damage of abstraction is a different thing altogether.
Some schemes were developed in the past whereby to compensate for abstraction (which had dried the stream) water was pumped from the aquifer into a losing reach of stream and the whole thing was a highway to nowhere.
Other times the concept of augmentation is used to justify continuing, unsustainable abstraction. These schemes have given the whole idea of flow augmentation a bad rap, and one that has stuck like glue.
RevIvel claim that a flow augmentation scheme putting 0.5 ml/d into a dry river bed is not a good type of augmentation scheme, especially if it delays a proper solution to the unsustainable abstraction. This is the kind of scheme is very different from the idea promoted in this blog post.
BUT, I would argue that we need to be more pragmatic and open minded than a presumption against these schemes if we are to achieve the heretofore irreconcilable goals of reliable public water supply and restored chalk streams. Aquifers in the south east are managed one way or another. We need to make sure they are managed mindfully to achieve the specific outcomes we want and in this regard holding out for “natural” when a more flexible approach would unstick hopeful schemes such as Chalk Streams First would surely be counter-productive?
I understand the Environment Agency may be consulting on this topic later in the year. I know from many discussions I have had with chalk stream advocates that the ideas I have outlined above will be surprising and counter-intuitive to most of us, as indeed they are to me.
But it is vital we give the EA the encouragement to take a flexible, if ultra cautious approach, because the gains of doing so could be massive.
Why, oh why has the Environment Agency asked Affinity Water to turn abstraction pumps back on in the River Chess catchment?
In the late 20-teens John Lawson came to me with a great idea that could end over-abstraction in many chalk streams, especially those near London. He explained how in the next ten years or so Affinity Water would be building a pipeline to connect their southern region (south of the Thames) where they have more than enough water, with their northern, where they do not. This pipeline, said John, would enable the wholesale reduction of groundwater abstraction in the chalk stream tributaries of the Colne: iconic streams like the Ver and Chess that have been far too heavily abstracted for over half-a-century. And maybe the chalk streams of the Lea too.
If you turn the groundwater pumps off, a lot of the water you “leave in the ground” so to speak, comes back as flow in the stream. With a pipeline you could abstract the water at the lower end of the catchment instead, store it in reservoirs (of which there are several in the London area) and take the water back to the places it came from, to be used as public water supply. The difference being that this way, the rivers actually get to flow. We called John’s brilliantly simple idea “Chalk Streams First” because it gives the river first use of its water. With the support of a coalition of eNGOs we started trying to interest the water companies, the Environment Agency and Ofwat-Rapid (Regulators Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development).
Rapid was interested from the start. Paul Hickey, who directs Rapid, is passionate about ensuring we actually deliver on our environmental ambition. The Environment Agency was interested too. Even Affinity Water took to the idea, especially once the Environment Agency indicated that it might allow some variations on the theme and flexibility with licence relocation favoured by Affinity’s very clever technical guru, Doug Hunt.
The introduction of the Grand Union Canal transfer scheme promised to underwrite any losses to public supply (ie. disparity between what you no longer abstract at the top end and what you get back at the lower end of the streams) and thus Affinity Water started to build abstraction relocation into their business plan. They will address the Colne chalk streams to start with, but in due course all the chalk streams of the Lea could also be included. The first shots, the prequel shots in fact, were fired in 2020 when Affinity Water voluntarily shut down their Alma Road abstraction on the River Chess.
Through these same years the CaBA chalk stream strategy has gained momentum, with support from Defra, the water industry and all stakeholders. The Colne version of Chalk Streams First promised to become a national flagship for how to realign abstraction, put the environment first, but still take account of public supply. Literally everyone liked the idea. Who in their right mind wouldn’t?
So why, in the name of all that is Holy, has the Environment Agency asked Affinity Water to resume abstracting from Alma Road at a rate of up to 7 million litres per day, without much in the way of explanation (at first) or consultation (thus far)? The decision itself seems bizarre. The way it has been handled given how the plight of our chalk streams has touched the national consciousness and has been debated in Parliament, is clumsy, to put it politely.
In the interests of fairness, I ought to say that the Environment Agency has now explained that this request was made of Affinity Water in order to conduct a five-year modelling exercise to study the relationship between abstraction, groundwater levels and fluvial flood risk in the Chess catchment. Note the words I have placed in italics.
The River Chess has historically suffered from excessive abstraction which has reduced flows in the river and sometimes caused it to dry up altogether in its upper reaches. As with other Chilterns streams groundwater abstraction climbed massively through the 20th century, in the Chess from a minimal 2.5 Ml/d in the 1920s to a peak of over 20 Ml/d between 2008 and 2018, almost 38% of the average aquifer recharge, placing it amongst the highest impacted chalk streams in the country (in the more impacted, such as the Ivel and Darent, abstraction exceeds 50% of recharge).
The cessation of the Chartridge and Alma Road abstractions has reduced the overall catchment abstraction to more like 25% of aquifer recharge: still far too high, but enough to show noticeable benefits.
The River Chess Association report that otters, water voles, brown trout, water crowfoot, mayfly and rare invertebrates such as the winterbourne stonefly have all returned to Chesham. In fact nothing monitors improving river health more effectively than invertebrates. The Association has been recording river-dwelling invertebrates in Chesham since 2009. In recent years species previously unseen in Chesham have been recorded, including mayfly (Ephemera Danica), caseless caddis (Rhyacophilidae ), turkey brown (Paraleptophlebia submarginata), and the nationally rare winterbourne stonefly (Nemoura lacustris).
Personally, I remember taking photographs in Chesham of a dry river in May 2017 and of a flowing river full of ranunculus in August 2022. The Chess stood for hope.
The River Chess a mere puddle in 2017The same reach in 2022
So why toss that all away? The stated explanation seems feeble. When asked by the River Chess Association what reasoning and data were behind the decision, the Environment Agency replied:
“The Environment Agency used their current understanding of the relationship between groundwater abstractions, groundwater levels, and river flows in the Chess catchment. This included information from two reports … which concluded that there is a relationship between groundwater abstraction and river flows. Based on the conclusions from both reports, a potential increase in fluvial flood risk [arising from a reduction of abstraction – my clarification not EAs] could not be ruled out. Implementing temporary adaptive abstraction, as set out in the operating agreement, minimises the potential impacts of abstraction reductions on fluvial flood risk until these impacts are better understood and managed.”
This states the obvious – that there is a relationship between abstraction, groundwater levels and flows – and presents it as an explanation. Of course there is a relationship! That’s why we want the abstraction to be reduced, to increase flows in the river and thus river health. In as much as it is an explanation it seems to be saying that the resumption of abstraction will be used to assess if abstraction can be used to reduce flows in the river, and via this reduce the risk of flooding.
Taken at face value this is very strange reasoning. The idea appears to be to use abstraction to reduce flows in the river. Despite what the EA state about adaptive abstraction* in the operating agreement I wonder a) if repurposing an abstraction licence from its use for public water supply to a different use of so-called flood-risk mitigation is within the remit of the licence and b) whether it is entirely legal under WFD legislation to deliberately reduce the flows in the river in order to theoretically reduce flood risk.
(*adaptive abstraction essentially comprises the variation of pumping rates across time, but I’ve only ever heard of the idea as a means to reduce ecological damage, which is the unfortunate by-product of the public water use, the reason why the licence exists. The EA’s idea here is actually putting the abstraction to a entirely different use than intended by the existing licence)
But these queries aside, this plan is not even a good way to reduce fluvial flood risk. Of course flooding is related to flows (and flows to groundwater levels), but in a chalk stream fluvial flooding is much more likely to be influenced by things such as impoundments, culverts, drainage, ditching and land use in the upper catchment. The EA would be far, far better off looking at these issues in order to mitigate fluvial flooding.
And that aside, using groundwater abstraction as a temporary measure to reduce fluvial flooding is like blowing the other way in order to slow down a tanker. The impact of groundwater abstraction accumulates over time and its impact on flows is geared via its impact on groundwater levels. By the time you realise you might have to reduce groundwater levels to reduce flows it is too late. You could only reasonably make this idea work if you run the abstraction all the time and reduce flows all the time, which is exactly what groundwater abstraction does.
Besides, where are they going to put all the water? Pump it downstream?
To me this feels like a nonsense explanation.
As anyone with a Twitter account knows, the sewage works at Chesham spills groundwater ingress sewage all the time when groundwater levels are high. In other words the groundwater spills through cracks in the pipes and overwhelms the sewage works. It is almost certain that the increase in groundwater levels that has followed the reduction in abstraction has increased the groundwater sewage spills (that and some very wet winters).
Is this really about modelling something we know all about already (the relationship between abstraction, groundwater levels and flows, which it is perfectly possible to accurately model), or is it a designed to see if the groundwater ingress flooding can be reduced by resuming abstraction?
You decide. Maybe I’m being too cynical. But if my suspicions are correct the EA would be trying to play tunes on the theme of ecological damage, resuming one form of damage to reduce another and I’m not sure that’s such a great idea. Or maybe Defra is exploring ways to meet its own stormwater reduction plan targets for chalk streams? These pesky groundwater ingress discharges are going to be a hard nut to crack.
If the issue really is fluvial flooding, where is the risk occurring exactly? And why not consult the Chess Association, and the Chilterns Society / chalk streams project to explore how the flood risk could be addressed without pumping all the groundwater away? I will be happy to publish any reply or further explanation from the EA.
Today I am posting a guest blog by Ali Morse – water policy director at the Wildlife Trust and chair at Blueprint for Water – on why it is so important to ensure our new, ambitious phosphorus reduction targets are applied to the parts of the landscape where we will see the greatest ecological benefit for the money spent. It’s astonishing to think that although we have been spending millions reducing phosphorus from sewage (66% reduction 1995 to 2020 … and now a new target of 80% reduction 2020 to 2038) we still haven’t found a way to ensure that we reduce phosphorus from the small works in the upper reaches of rivers where the reductions would have the greatest ecological outcome. Essentially, ever since the UWWTD (Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive) was passed to drive these reductions, cost-effectiveness has been measured by population attached to a given works as opposed to for example: % length of river d’stream of the pollution source, or the volume of flow in the receiving waterbody relative to the volume of flow from the pollution. This doesn’t make sense. We create targets to reduce phosphorus because it has a negative ecological impact: the primary outcome should surely be, therefore, to minimise the ecological impact, regardless of the local population size. In practice we reduce phosphorus in such a way that the ecological impact its secondary to accounting methodologies. This means we have rivers like the Frome in Dorset (a SSSI chalk stream) where the phosphorus concentrations go down as you travel downstream and are lowest just above the estuary (see the map below which I drew up when working on the chalk stream strategy, (based on 2016 WFD data)). It cannot be rocket science to find some simple policy drivers that would make the difference. All the river-oriented eNGOs should take a united front on this in my view, change the raw-sewage record for a few turns of the dance floor, and implore government to develop a way to maximise the ecological outcome for their ambitious Environment Act targets.
Here’s Ali’s excellent blog, first paragraph with a link across to the Wildlife Trusts site:
“In November 2021, the Environment Act became law and, with it, the promise of ambitious targets that would turn the tide on nature’s decline. Early last year, new regulations set out the detail of targets on water[i], waste, woodland and other topics that all contribute to the overarching and ambitious ‘apex’ goal, of seeing declines in species abundance halted by 2030.
For our watery habitats, the targets are intended to tackle the key pressures against which there has been stubbornly little progress to date. Nutrient pollution is a key factor that blights the freshwater environment, not just in England but around the globe. Although there are downsides to having targets on specific, potentially siloed topics, the logic of seeking to drive action on THE greatest pressure faced by our rivers, lakes and coastal waters is understandable. In freshwaters, phosphate is the pollutant causing the greatest number of failures against ecological standards. It’s a reason that more than half of England’s rivers, and three quarters of lakes, are assessed as not being in good health.
Of particular concern is the impact of phosphate pollution upon England’s chalk streams …”
Chalk-Streams 