Demonstrating a welcome shift in attitude from the Government on water quality, Ministers have agreed with the majority of the recommendations in the Environmental Audit Committee report, Water quality in rivers. Read the Government Response Read the Report: Water Quality in Rivers Inquiry: Water Quality in Rivers Environmental Audit Committee The Government and the water […]

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From the Guardian Water companies discharged raw sewage into English rivers 372,533 times last year, a slight reduction on the previous year. The water companies covering England released untreated sewage for a combined total of more than 2.7m hours; compared with 3.1m hours in 2020, according to data released by the Environment Agency (EA) on […]

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Welsh fishing boats to have monitoring devices. Wales has become the first nation in the UK to require all of its licensed commercial fishing boats are fitted with a Vessel Monitoring System (VMS). Boats 12m or more in length were already required to have such a system in place, but an Order coming into force […]

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CIWEM:  ‘ OVERVIEW The purpose of this guide is to assist water companies with best practice for EDM to comply with the conditions within a discharge permit. This guide collates current good practice on Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) of discharges from combined sewer overflows and other permitted storm overflows. Note that this document relates to […]

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The Rivers Trust have also teamed up with a number of other organisations, including lead water company United Utilities, to bid for funding for a Catchment Monitoring Co-operative. The partnership was successful in securing £7.1m from OFWAT’s first Water Breakthrough Challenge, to demonstrate how we can build the evidence base we need to transform our rivers. […]

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MMO  Monitoring Marine Plans  ‘Background and purpose Marine planning guides decision making in the marine area, making sure the right activities are carried out in the right place and at the right time. It enables sustainable economic growth while protecting the natural and historic environment, recognising the needs of all. Marine plans form a part […]

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A new tranche of monitoring and progress reports from the Skomer MCZ has been added to the NRW website.  In addition to the 2019 Annual Report, the  Project Status Report 2019-20 lists 42 MCZ monitoring projects (mostly biological but including hydrography and human activities), summarises some of these and provides detailed updates on several others.  There […]

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Defra, the Northern Ireland Executive, the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government have now published updates to the marine monitoring programmes for the state of the UK seas. The document sets out the monitoring programmes we use to measure progress towards Good Environmental Status in the UK seas. It notes the improvements we have made […]

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