1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Scotland's water environment is in a relatively good condition compared with that of many European countries. We also now have in place an integrated framework to protect and improve our water environment through the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 (the WEWS Act), which transposed the European Water Framework Directive ( WFD), and the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) (Scotland) Regulations 2005 ( CAR).
However, our water bodies are under pressure from a variety of uses. We need to ensure that water use is sustainable, in order to protect aquatic life, and also to safeguard resources for use in the future. The framework provided by the WEWS Act and CAR will be vital in ensuring that we can protect the quality of the waters we have, and where necessary and practicable, improve the status of those that are under pressure.
The key mechanism for delivering improvements to the water environment will be the river basin management planning process. This will identify the improvements to the water environment that it is technically feasible and proportionate to make, how and when these improvements can be made and, therefore, the objectives we expect to achieve in the period covered by the River Basin Management Plan.
GENERAL PURPOSE AND PRINCIPLES OF RIVER BASIN MANAGEMENT PLANNING
The River Basin Management Plan is a 6-yearly statement which sets out how we are meeting the requirements of the Water Framework Directive and how we are planning to continue to do so. Producing such plans will involve identifying risks to the status of our water environment, and assessing how and to what extent these risks can be addressed in the current or subsequent planning cycles.
The objective setting process will allow us to strike the right balance between protecting the water environment and securing its sustainable use for the purposes of economic and social development. The planning process will also provide new opportunities for interested parties to become actively involved in shaping how we protect and improve our river basin districts.
1.2 Aims of this Policy Statement
This Policy Statement sets out Ministers' aims for the objective-setting process for river basin management planning under the WEWS Act. It identifies the principles that SEPA should take into account in discharging its statutory duties to deliver effective river basin management planning in the Scotland River Basin District. A separate statement will be issued in respect of the Solway Tweed River Basin District, where river basin management planning policies are required to be developed jointly with Defra Ministers.
This paper aims to explain the context and process of objective setting to those who will be directly or indirectly affected, such as operators of controlled activities; developers; and interested third parties including responsible authorities and other relevant public bodies.
River basin management planning is an iterative process and so this paper also sets out the various interactions and dependencies, including the links with associated environmental standards and regulatory processes.
1.3 River basin management planning process
In general, the key steps of the river basin management planning process can be summarised as follows:
1. Characterising water bodies in Scotland, identifying the pressures we are placing on them, and assessing whether these pressures are going to prevent the bodies from achieving good status;
2. Setting an appropriate environmental objective for each water body. This will involve:
- identifying what improvements, if any, would be needed to achieve good status;
- deciding whether it would be technically feasible to make these improvements and, if so, what the most cost-effective means of making them would be;
- weighing up whether it would be disproportionately expensive to make the improvements; and
- if it is disproportionately expensive or technically infeasible to make the improvements, deciding what improvements it would be feasible and proportionate to make and hence what alternative objective can be achieved.
3. Describing the environmental objectives we have set and a summary of the measures we are going to use to achieve them in the relevant River Basin Management Plan.
This process will allow environmental improvements to be prioritised over successive planning cycles whilst securing the continued sustainable use of Scotland's water resources. Some of the work for the first plan, for example an initial characterisation and risk assessment, is complete. This paper sets out our thinking on the next steps along the way.