Will the environmental standards and conditions vary across the UK and Europe?

The animals and plants you find in waters in one part of the UK can often be very different to those found in other parts. This is because animals and plants have evolved under different environmental conditions. For example, some plants and animals are adapted to the cold, nutrient poor conditions found in highland Scotland. Others are adapted to the warmer, richer conditions of lowland Britain. This means that different environmental standards are needed for different types of waters to protect those waters’ characteristic plant and animal communities.

The proposals for the environmental standards and conditions developed by the UK environment and conservation agencies reflect differences in the ecology of our waters by setting out how the standards change with factors such as altitude and alkalinity.

At a European level, differences in the conditions to which plants and animals are adapted can be even more marked. We are currently involved in a major European exercise ( known as the European intercalibration exercise ) designed to ensure that, taking into account these natural differences, the environmental quality we are aiming to achieve is comparable. We have taken account of the outputs of this work in the development of UKTAGs? proposal for environmental standards and conditions.

Intercalibration will focus initially on those plants and animals expected to be most severely affected by the main pressures on the water environment. The work will also compare a limited number of environmental standards, in particular those for nutrients. If appropriate, the UK will refine our environmental standards for nutrients to take account of the results of the intercalibration exercise.

Since groundwater status depends to a large extent on the impact of groundwater abstraction and pollution on the status of the surface water bodies into which it flows, there is no separate intercalibration exercise for groundwater.