Environment Agency   Last updated:    29 June 2017, see all updates

How to assess the impact of your activity in estuarine (transitional) and coastal waters for the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The guidance is called Clearing the Waters for All.

Contents

1. Carry out your WFD assessment in stages
2. Screening: exclude activities from scoping
3. Scoping: identify risks to receptors
4. Impact assessment: consider impacts and mitigation
5. Submit your WFD assessment
6. Contact

This guidance is for activities in the marine environment up to 1 nautical mile out to sea.

Many activities need approval before they can go ahead. You must provide a Water Framework Directive (WFD) assessment as part of your application to the public body that regulates and grants permissions for your activity.

A WFD assessment helps you and your regulator understand:

• the impact your activity may have on the immediate water body and any linked water bodies
• whether your activity complies with the river basin management plan (RBMP)

Every water body has a status. The current status is set out in the 2015 RBMPs. It’s based on the condition of different quality elements in the water body, for example biology.

The WFD aim is for all water bodies to be at good status. In a WFD assessment you must show if your activity will:

• cause or contribute to deterioration of status
• jeopardise the water body achieving good status

This guidance updates and replaces ‘Clearing the Waters’, the previous WFD guidance for dredging and disposal activities in estuarine and coastal waters.

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