The Protection and Conservation of Water Resources

Hadrian F. Cook

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781119970040
• eBook ISBN: 9781119334293
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Environmental Management
• Index: Technology & Engineering

This book is about water - in Britain, and in the world. It is about water resources, their conservation, protection of water quality for human consumption and aquatic ecosystems. Since the publication of the first edition in 1998, major political and regulatory changes have taken place; this book provides a clear and comprehensive update of conservation and water resource management issues in the UK over the past two decades, and – in an expansion of its original UK perspective – now includes examples of global best practice. The UK's 2003 adoption of the EU Water Framework Directive has had enormous implications for the conservation and management of our water resources. In 2016, with the UK's decision to leave the EU, the governance scene is entering upon an unpredictable future regarding its major water resource policies.

The Protection and Conservation of Water Resources, Second edition provides a clear and comprehensive update of conservation and water resource management issues. Chapter 1 deals with sustainability and water policy, outlines the issues and challenges, and asks: what is integrated water management? Chapter 2 reviews water availability and sufficiency in Britain, while Chapter 3 explores the dynamic between institutions and legislative framework. Chapter 4 introduces the catchment approach, and chapters 5 and 6 explore the issues of sustaining bulk supply and the imperatives of climate change. Chapter 7 looks at the contemporary background to water quality issues, and Chapter 8 provides case studies of catchment problems, both urban and rural. Chapter 9 describes solutions in land use change, including technical fixes and their sustainability. Chapter 10 is concerned with emerging governance arrangements, and Chapter 11 takes a global view, looking at successful examples around the world to find positive lessons from Europe, north America and Australia.

1
Water, Policy and Procedure

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place.

Tales of a Traveller, Washington Irving (1824)

1.1 Pressing Needs for Conservation and Protection?

Among the nations, the three constituent countries of Great Britain (England, Wales and Scotland) were early to industrialise and have been that way for around two and a half centuries. While this observation sets the scene for an account of the water resources of Britain, the last 30 or more years have seen dramatic changes away from the heavy industrial sector. Yet problems persist, particularly where ‘technical fixes’ have not provided solutions. Once it was assumed that regulatory measures, and especially ‘end of pipe’ pollution problems are solved (in theory) through consenting and licencing, yet diffuse pollution of waters persists from a range of contaminants and from a range of industrial and other activities. These result largely from the ways by which we conduct our economy and new solutions are sought. Not only is Britain definitively to manage its water resources on a catchment (or river basin) basis, but new political imperatives are emerging that require water management in part to become an extension of ‘civil society;’ this eclipses older ideas about ‘technocratic management’.

This chapter outlines the present issues for sustainability and sustainable development in water resources, and it also scopes out the challenges. This is a tall order, for there is no agreed definition of sustainability or for any prescription of sustainable development. Such received wisdom on the subject is, however, helpful to a point for there is general agreement that three spheres of ‘social’ ‘economic’ and ‘environmental’ sustainability are involved. Figure 1.1 shows a common variant of the famous Venn diagram used in many accounts. Other commentators choose to re‐name or expand this into other spheres, including the cultural and political. Certainly the latter is of great interest here, for changes in water governance are driven by political agenda and the political dimension can be seen as the driver for the others. While implicit in the social, to delve into the murky depths of cultural activities is also implied.

Figure 1.1 Spheres of ‘sustainability’ Rodriguez et al 2002.

Actually the Brundtland Report ‘Our common Future’ of 1987 (World Bank, n.d.) sought to define the notion of sustainable development, to use the oft‐quoted definition:

‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’.

This is a good stage‐setter, but it gives an objective without ways and means. No doubt feeling a bit cynical, in some ways it has become that ‘it is simply a new manifestation of an old, tired discourse.’ Variously accused of being too western, too anthropocentric, even hiding the fact that the economic framework itself cannot hope to accommodate environmental considerations, perhaps a critique of the neo‐liberal worldview that the answer lies within small adjustments to the market system, especially where the underlying presumption of economic growth remains. Is it, on account of being such a broad concept that it is open to wrong action, be that through good or poor motives? It can be therefore more catchphrase than a revolution in our thinking. We are sent back to thinking about equity, environmental justice and how the means of production are organised (Hove, 2004).

This book is about water in Britain, and it brings in a few comparisons from North America’ from ‘continental’ Europe and from elsewhere. This constrains it to mature, developed economies. Furthermore, a volume that goes into the details of development theory is not its purpose. Mercifully, in water resource science and policy, there are boundaries that may be defined socially and politically (as stakeholder groups), as well as in a geological and topographic sense (Cook et al., 2012). Even more helpful, if traditional aspects of standard setting and notions of ‘carrying capacity’ are included, presuming the calculations of these variables reflect real water quality and ecosystem issues, some of this work is done for us. For the World Conservation Union has described the idea of carrying capacity as ‘improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems’ (Gardiner, 1994).

Yet the real revolution in water management has been in the socio‐economic‐political sphere. Progress in water resource management as affects Britain seemed to falter from about 1990 onwards, and one manifestation was the UK research councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme (RELU) between 2004 and 2013 (RELU, 2015). Its objective was to take a long, sidewise look at UK land use issues by all interested parties, so that teams of social and natural scientists, policy makers and engineers, practitioners, theorists and all shades in between were involved. One illustration is the persistent issue of diffuse pollution, that is pollution (in this case of waters) that is not about attributing blame to an individual site or enterprise, but to the way we do things. Classic examples are nutrient pollution and pesticides from farming systems, loading of sediment to river systems from various land uses, phosphates and pathogens from sewage treatment and various hydrocarbons, salt and even heavy metal contamination in runoff from roads. In some way, we are all responsible and to go to the individual farmer or industrial concern is patently not only alienating, but it is difficult and expensive to enforce and would seem to contradict notions of ‘natural justice’.

Mainland Great Britain is a small and overcrowded island and it has been stated that England, Wales and Scotland were early to industrialise. However, since around 1980 there has been a serious move away from the heavy industrial sector. Setting aside the momentous social changes of this, the often bitter legacy of neo‐liberal ‘Thatcherism’, that changed communities often for the worse and made unemployment endemic in the economy, Britain was to suffer in the long‐term for transition towards a service based economy. Industry continued, but in a muted form and with new products replacing some steel, coal products, ships and so on. Car production did continue, but it is under foreign ownership and operating under different constraints.

In parallel with industrialisation, an intensive agriculture has developed which largely concentrated in lowland areas. Official statistics for 2011 for the entire UK suggest that around 76% is in agricultural production (Defra, n.d.), this includes roads, yards, derelict land and associated buildings. Of the remainder, some 10% (and rising) is under forest and woodland and 14% under ‘other’, mainly urban and industrial, but also semi‐natural vegetation and recreational land use. Rivers, lakes, streams and canals cover some 2,580 km² and there is an unquantifiable volume of water beneath our feet as groundwater.

At the planetary level, the ‘hydrosphere’ is the arena in which hydrological processes occur and it is intimately related to geological, geochemical and biological planetary systems. As the above statistics suggest, for the land‐based part of the hydrological cycle, to regard the hydrological cycle as wholly a ‘natural’ process belonging to some Arcadian, ‘deep green’ paradise world with little human intervention is of no use. Britain is certainly no exception.

With a population (2011 census) of around 61.3 million (53.0 million in England, 3.1 million in Wales and 5.2 million in Scotland), England and Wales had a population density of 371 persons per km² with several well‐known large centres of population making it unevenly distributed and the figure is far lower for Scotland at 67 persons per km² with most living in just two large cities. Overall, England and Wales combined is among the most densely populated countries in the world. Pressures on water, as on other resources such as land and energy, are therefore considerable and potentially problematic.

Estimated water abstraction volume from non‐tidal surface water and groundwater in England and Wales between 2000 and 2014 is shown in Figure 1.2 and fell steadily from an estimated 15 billion cubic metres in 2000 to 11.4 billion cubic metres in 2011, after which it increased again.

Figure 1.2 Estimated abstractions from non‐tidal surface water and groundwater in England and Wales, 2000 to 2014 (Defra, 2016a).

(source: Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales)

Overall categories continue to fall except spray irrigation, included in ‘other’ in Figure 1.2 (Defra, 2013a; 2016a).

The changes in abstraction levels between years include factors attributed to:

• Weather conditions, for example drier years could result in an increase in abstraction for agriculture and spray irrigation.
• Changes in the level of activity in different sectors.
• Improvements being made in the efficiency of water usage.
• Changes to abstraction licences.

The main reason for the overall decrease in abstraction between 2013 and 2014 is the fall in the level of abstractions used for electricity generation. Levels of abstraction for electricity generation fell by 16% from 6.4 billion cubic metres in 2013 to 5.3 million cubic metres in 2014. The abstractions for public water supply decreased slightly between 2013 and 2014 by 2% to 5.8 billion cubic metres in 2014.

For Scotland, the overall figure for abstraction is smaller, for 2012 it being about 737.7 million cubic metres from an overall far wetter climate (Scottish Government, n.d.a) and showing a strong downward trend of 13% between 2002/3 and 2009/10. Between 2010/11‐2011/12, the volume of raw water abstracted also decreased but the figure is calculated using a different methodology. There was a 16% reduction in treated water produced between 2002/03 and 2009/10. Between 2002/03 and 2011/12, domestic water consumption increased by 7%, whilst non domestic consumption reduced by 18%. Of this around one third is for domestic supply. Leakage in the delivery system in Scotland in 2012 was around 27% of the total extracted with a long‐term downward trend. Overall, however, water resources in Britain remain tight and continue to present problems for continuity of supply as well as water quality, something that will be dealt with later.

Perhaps to become too embroiled in statistics is to fail to set the scene properly. The curious reader can always visit many websites, be they governmental, regulatory, industrial, or linked to supra‐national organisations such as the European Commission or United Nations organisations. The fascination many of us have for water is not only its barometer on how ‘sustainable’ our development may be, but more importantly how might this precious resource be allocated with equity, and how might appropriate governance structures be put into place.

Drivers of change have long been not so much domestic legislation, but EU directives, culminating in arguably the most dramatic and far‐reaching Water Framework Directive or WFD (2000) of the European Union (EU). This bold step forward in integrating socio‐economic and technical measures is correctly called the “Directive 2000/60/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for the Community action in the field of water policy” (EC, 2014a,b). WFD calls for ‘integrated river basin management for Europe’ and incorporates notions of ‘good status’ for waterbodies (ecological, chemical and quantitative), achieving a ‘good status’ for all waters by a set date(s), base water management on river basins, streamlining legislation, finding “combined approach” of emission limit values and quality standards, getting the prices right and getting the citizen involved more closely.

In the author’s experience, it was heralded by a warm welcome, even excitement by a whole range of water professionals. Only at the time of writing are notes of caution being sounded. However, it remains the yardstick and as far as water institutions are concerned, there has been a focus (or range of foci) that has caused a degree of re‐orientation. No bad thing, some would say.

Perhaps as far as Britain is concerned, there are two key points. One is that before 2000, the EU set no regulation on quantity of water abstracted. Now it was a matter of supra‐national legislation. The other being that the ‘great British public’ was to be involved in the decision making. How and why this development remained somewhat obscure is unknown, but it certainly sharpened up and advanced the political dimension in the watery debate. Meanwhile, other issues may have been regarded as being in hand. Getting the price right was part of an objective of water industry privatisation after 1989, itself a part of a ‘neo‐liberal’ economic revolution that remains highly controversial to the present; the aim was to remove much of the cost of investment and regulation from the public purse. The concept of ‘Good Status’ is complicated and will be dealt with later, but would parallel moves towards environmental conservation and away from the dominance of ‘hard‐engineering’ solutions.

Suffice to say, to anyone who grew up with notions of publically owned Regional Water Authorities between 1974 and 1989 as being stable institutions operating ‘in the public good’, remains bemused and intrigued by the changes in succeeding decades. Anything described as ‘new’ becomes suspect, for it too may soon become a curiosity of environmental governance history! We remain deeply concerned with changing regulatory environments.

1.2 A Conceptual Framework for Water Regulation

Water supply and usage is a matter of appropriating water from the land surface, sea and underground for some purpose while minimising the knock‐on effects to both the resource and the wider environment including flooding (Defra (2014a). To summarise:

• Water resources are to do with resource balance within defined hydrographic units (such as a river basin or groundwater unit) and with sustaining bu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Table of Contents
• Notes on Author
• Preface
• Preface to the First Edition
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Water, Policy and Procedure
• 2 Water Resource Availability in Britain
• 3 Institutions and Legislation for Resource Management
• 4 The Catchment Approach
• 5 Sustaining Bulk Supply
• 6 Sustaining Bulk Supply
• 7 Water Quality Background Issues
• 8 Environmental Issues of Water Quality and Quantity
• 9 Towards Solutions
• 10 Framing Water Policies
• 11 The USA, Australia, Europe and Lessons to be Learned
• References
• Index
• End User License Agreement