This 3-minute piece on Channel 4 News Is critical of the Environment Agency testing regime for bathing waters, because some test results are discounted. Blurb Earlier this year, an investigation by this programme led to calls for a change to the system that’s meant to warn swimmers in England about pollution linked to sewage. We […]
A new, useful journal article, Forecasting bathing water quality in the UK: A critical review considers what an optimal framework for bathing water forecasting might look like. Abstract Climate change is altering rainfall patterns resulting in increasing variability and intensity of rainfall events worldwide. Increases to short duration, intense rainfall (i.e., convective rainfall), will lead […]
The Guardian reports that new EU rules which introduce “polluter pays” principles to get pharmaceutical and cosmetic companies to pay for the pollution they cause in rivers will not be adopted by the government in England, as campaigners say the country is falling behind. Lawmakers in Europe have signed off on an update to the urban waste […]
Members of the public are now invited to participate in a consultation to support the roll-out of potentially 27 new English bathing water sites. The two-week consultation will be administrated by the Environment Agency (EA) as part of the government’s plan to improve water quality across England. If designated, sites will receive regular water monitoring […]
Households would be willing to pay up to £40 a year more on their water bill to use nature instead of man-made materials to improve river water quality and reduce the risk of flooding. A study by the Consumer Council for Water (CCW) explored people’s appetite for water companies to pursue nature-based approaches to tackle some […]
The Guardian reports that eighty-three per cent of English rivers contain evidence of high pollution caused by sewage and agricultural waste, according to the largest citizen science water testing project ever to take place in the UK. Hundreds of anglers took part in the study, organised by the Angling Trust, after being angered by the […]
The Guardian reports that testing by citizen scientists of a beck that feeds into Windermere has revealed a huge loss in invertebrate life in the lake in Cumbria that campaigners say is being caused by sewage discharges. Save Windermere and WildFish carried out testing for invertebrates in Cunsey Beck, a site of special scientific interest […]
The Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) has published its annual progress report, showing the Government remains largely off track to meets its environmental ambitions and must speed up and scale up its efforts in order to achieve them. The OEP report provides an assessment of government’s progress towards legally-binding environmental targets and the goals of […]