Your Tidal Thames
- 20% of all surface water in the EU is seriously threatened with pollution
- 50% of wetlands have endangered status
- Is this situation getting better or worse?
Nearly half the EU population live in water-stressed countries where demand for water can
at times be greater than the available supply. Additionally, natural habitats are increasingly
threatened by pollution or the demand for land, and hence biodiversity will certainly be
affected. Environmental legislation seeks to limit or reverse these trends.
- What is Your Tidal Thames?
- What is the European Water Framework Directive?
- What can you do to get involved or get more information?
This page focuses on the issues and challenges that the tidal Thames faces. The aim is to develop an effective, deliverable and sustainable Catchment Plan to help achieve the Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives for the tidal Thames by engaging the wide range of communities, residents, river users and interest groups and utilising your experience,
concerns and expertise. We want you to be involved.
Background
- What are the Water Framework Directive and the Catchment Based Approach?
Water Framework Directive We have historically under-valued the economic benefits of properly functioning ecosystems, and the services that they provide (such as fisheries, erosion control, leisure amenities, pollution cleansing by salt marshes, etc.). Water is of course crucial to the functioning of all ecosystems. By several measures the UK is often far from the worst case, but the demand for water is growing here too, recent droughts and flooding indicate climate-linked risks, and water bodies may contain transient or more permanent pollutants, and may display associated ecological degradation.
By the mid-1990s nearly half of EU respondents were worried about ‘water pollution.’ There was no shortage of legislation, with previous waves based on setting limits dating back to the 1970s and 1980s, but compliance had not always been good. Reasons varied but it was believed that common threads were that the public perceived a lack of ‘ownership’ of the legislative process and that existing legislation was overly-complex. The Water Framework Directive was introduced to overcome these, and associated, challenges. The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is European legislation which came into force in December 2000 and became part of UK law in December 2003. It requires member states to make plans to protect and improve the water environment. The Directive applies to all water bodies; these are defined as: Surface freshwater bodies (including lakes, streams, canals and rivers), Groundwater bodies, and Transitional (estuaries) and Coastal water bodies (TraC).
The Directive seeks to tackle both diffuse and point sources of pollution. Diffuse pollution originates from a variety of activities over a large area, for example urban and agricultural land use, domestic release into sewers, transport including road run off, ports and harbours, and industry. Point source pollution comes from a single, identifiable source for example a combined sewage outfall (CSO). As well as affecting water quality, diffuse and point source pollution has detrimental ecological effects and can affect the abundance and distribution of plants and animals, profoundly changing the characteristics of the ecosystems upon which they depend.
In 2009 as part of the Environment Agency’s (EA) implementation of the Water Framework Directive, the first River Basin Management Plans were produced – these set the environmental objectives for each body of water and summarised the programmes of measures needed to make improvements to water bodies.
The Environment Agency is now reviewing and updating the plans for England, and will publish revised plans in December 2015. In developing these plans, the Environment Agency holds formal consultations at three points in the river basin management planning process, details of these consultations can be found on the Environment Agency website.
Link to the Your Tidal Thames guide to the Water Framework Directive – 0.19MB
Case studies in Tidal Thames
Catchment Based Approach
In March 2011 Richard Benyon, Minister for Natural Environment and Fisheries, announced the Catchment Based Approach to delivering the Water Framework Directive. A catchment is an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, where the waters drains into another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean. The Thames River Basin is an area spanning 16,133km2 from the source of the River Thames in Gloucestershire through London to the Southern North Sea. The freshwater Thames becomes the tidal Thames at Teddington all the way along its length it receives water from the rivers draining into it and the land surrounding it. The chemical, physical and biological characteristics of our water (water quality) is affected by every activity that takes place on land as well as through our actions in abstracting, using and returning water to rivers, the sea and the ground.
Catchments are the natural scale to consider this aspect of the environment. Through better coordinated action at the catchment level by all those who use water or influence land management, we can improve water quality for our own health and use and for the health of the aquatic habitats and associated animals. The Catchment Based Approach aims to explore better ways of engaging with people and organisations at a catchment level and encouraging greater local participation to achieve more for communities and the water environment.
In April 2011 the EA began piloting this approach in 10 catchments. In January 2012, a further 15 pilots, hosted by external organisations, were established. The Environment Agency website provides a map of all the Water Framework Directive Management Catchments in England.
The Your Tidal Thames project was one of these pilots, hosted by Thames21 and Thames Estuary Partnership. At the launch of the Catchment Based Approach in 2011 Richard Benyon said that the pilots should:
“Provide a clear understanding of the issues in the catchment, involve local communities in decision-making by sharing evidence, listening to their ideas, working out priorities for action and seeking to deliver integrated actions that address local issues in a cost effective way and protect local resources”
In June 2013, Defra launched a Policy Framework to aid wider adoption of the Catchment Based Approach. The policy sets out the high level objectives for the approach, to establish Catchment Partnerships in every catchment in England where there is an interest in doing so to:
- Deliver positive and sustained outcomes for the water environment by promoting a
better understanding of the environment at a local level
- Encourage a more transparent form of decision making, in support of local
collaboration or partnership working, for both planning and delivery. More information on the contributions that the Your Tidal Thames project makes in delivering the Catchment Based Approach see the About us section of this Webpage.
1.2 The pilot year
During the pilot phase of the Your Tidal Thames project, in 2012 the project was co-hosted by Thames21 and the Thames Estuary Partnership (TEP).
The Pilot Project aimed: To develop an effective, deliverable and sustainable Catchment Plan to help achieve the Water Framework Directive (WFD) objectives for the tidal Thames by engaging the wide range of communities, residents, river users and interest groups and utilising their experience, concerns and expertise.
The Catchment Based Approach (CaBA) for the WFD requires local community involvement to be at the heart of the development of Catchment Plans. YTT wanted to ensure through effective stakeholder engagement that those connected with, or who care about the river, had an opportunity to have a say in the improvement of the tidal Thames. Achieving this engagement over an area as large as the tidal Thames, where there are so many diverse communities and river users was a challenge.
During the pilot year the Your Tidal Thames team engaged widely across the tidal Thames area. This was achieved by taking engagement to the community rather than trying to bring people together in one place at one time. The key engagement tool was a Catchment Plan Template which was made up of 5 sections and prompted people to give their views on the tidal Thames.
The titles of the sections in the Catchment Plan Template were:
- In your view, what problems are affecting the tidal Thames?
- What can be done to address these problems?
- Action Plan - What should the target be to achieve and by when? Who else can help deliver this target? What part can you (or your organisation) play?
- How do you use or relate to the tidal Thames?
- Your Contact details.
With this as the basis for engagement the Your Tidal Thames Project Team sent an introductory email to the people on both organisations databases – a combined number of nearly 6000 people. As a result of this, and other engagement work such as events and conferences, we spoke directly to 1,412 people about the work of the project and reached a further 14,622 people via online and social media. By the end of 2012, 62 individuals and 53 organisations had provided their views for input to the Catchment Plan.
About us
Tidal Thames Catchment
Enhancement Projects
Proposed Case studies in Your Tidal Thames
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Supplementary Information
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Additional links and references
| Link | Description |
|---|---|
| http://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal/ho/wfd/water/choices | The Challenges and Choices consultation (launched June 2013) describes the significant water management issues in the river basin district. There is also a consultation on the nationally significant water management issues called England’s Waters: Challenges and Choices |
| http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/140092.aspx | Additional river basin district specific information to support the “Challenges and Choices” public consultation document |
| http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/33106.aspx | Information about river basin districts, catchments, water bodies and the river basin management planning process |
Link back to the main Thames River Basin page: Thames
Link back to the main England country page: England
Link back to the main England background information: Country info:England - background information