How will the effectiveness of the environmental standards be assessed?

The principal means by which we assess if we have been effective in our efforts to protect and improve the water environment is to classify the status of water bodies. To do this, we monitor and assess the health of the plants and animals living in the water bodies together with the chemical quality of the water, the water flows & levels and the structure and condition of the bed and banks of the water body.

We use the results of these assessments to decide the class of each water body. We will assign each water body to one of five ecological status classes: high, good, moderate, poor or bad. These classes indicate the degree to which the aquatic plant and animal communities living in the water body have been adversely affected by human activity. UKTAG is developing the monitoring and classification tools and we expect them to be complete in 2007.

If the ecological health of water bodies turns out to be significantly worse or better than expected, this may indicate that the environmental standards need to be revised. We will use classification information to determine the need to review the environmental standards.

The results of classification will be published in the first river basin management plans. At that time, the programme of measures required to protect the water environment are also due to be finalised. We will then review how effective our management actions have been after 2012.