Maintaining water security requires effective regulation. We need enough to drink and enough to use in our homes and businesses. We also need enough for our green and pleasant land to thrive, and for our rivers, canals, lakes, ponds, estuaries and coastal waters to provide healthy ecosystems for aquatic and aquatic-dependent plants and animals. All this, while also managing the risks associated with climate change, population growth, public health (water-borne epidemics), flood, drought and pollution.
However, few people (both the public and many working in the water sector) have a real awareness of how the water regulatory system works, how water environmental policy is derived and becomes law, and how the law is implemented to deliver intended policy outcomes. All this has been something of a hidden art, practised efficiently and effectively by regulatory agencies, and largely below the radar.
Today we live in troubled times. The twin threats of climate change and population growth demand that we increase our awareness of the importance to all of us of water quality, and in particular that of environmental water. We need to have in place long-term sustainable water planning and measures to ensure we continue to have enough water available for all our various uses.
The industrial revolution and subsequent population growth significantly harmed many of the UK’s natural waters. Science and engineering were successfully used to ensure that most people had access to wholesome water for drinking, but far less effort was directed at protecting the environment from which that water is sourced.
Economic growth resulted in unsustainable practices that polluted and degraded many of our rivers, streams, lakes, groundwaters, canals, estuaries and coastal waters. Effective water pollution control legislation came into place only in the 1950s, and UK law has ratcheted tighter since then, particularly as a beneficial consequence of EU membership.
Environmental water quality has significantly improved from a low starting point, due to a combination of effective regulation and market forces constraining extractive and manufacturing industries, but is not yet near fully complying with agreed EU targets. Much of our water environmental law now is based on pan-European directives, the negotiation and agreement of which has been a major function of successive governments.
The targets are rightly challenging, particularly where historic malpractice, pursuit of profit and government indifference have resulted in pollution. Continuing heavy metal pollution of many watercourses and groundwaters by abandoned mines is a case in point. As is soil erosion and nutrient enrichment from industrialised farming practice.
Water is so important that there has been a bewildering array of government interventions in the industry that surrounds it, generated over different timescales and often to different imperatives.
The lay person and the seasoned professional often have difficulty in tracking down what is the relevant government water policy, law, and means of regulatory delivery, and how they fit together, let alone how effective these interventions have been. Surprisingly, given the widespread availability of information technology, there has been no ready accessible reference of EU and UK water environmental law, and how it is implemented.
Recognising this gap, and to address at least the water quality aspects of it, the Foundation for Water Research (FWR) recently commissioned a small group of experts to revise and update a knowledge exchange report on the regulation of water quality in the EU that had initially been produced for the EU/China river basin planning programme. The resulting book is now available in hard copy from FWR – it is also available in digital format.
This not-for-profit publication, supported by Atkins Global, UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, the Stockholm International Water Institute and Cranfield University, is designed to be a quick reference guide to European and UK regulation of water quality. The electronic book links directly to hundreds of original UK and EU documents, providing relevant policy, legal and technical detail.
While this book is a starting point for improving understanding of water quality regulation, there is a longer-term need to increase teaching of water policy and associated regulatory issues in UK universities. Acknowledging this weakness in the pipeline of future expertise on water policy, FWR and Cranfield University are working together to develop a short CIWEM-accredited training course on water quality planning and regulation based on the book. Once in place, the course will be easily transferable to other countries in need of this expertise.
Chris Chubb, Environmental Policy Consultant