Non-technical summary. Under its Inset appointment, Veolia Water Projects Limited (VWPL) is responsible for the water supply of Tidworth, Xxxxxx Down and the east part of Ludgershall. The water is abstracted from two groundwater sources at three sites (Tidworth BH2, Tidworth BH3 and Chalkpit) under an abstraction licence issued by the Environment Agency. The treated water is then treated and distributed through the water distribution network to around 2,000 civilian properties, over 120 commercial properties, a large xxxxxxxx and some 1,300 Service Families Accommodation [SFAs] properties in the town and community. These sources provide sufficient water to meet the needs of VWPL customers as well as providing bulk supplies to a Wessex Water (WW) for the Leckford Bridge Zone to the north of Tidworth, as well as the three Enclaves in Tidworth town. While historical events show that there is a low probability of adverse impact of a drought on levels of service to customers, and analysis indicates that VWPL is resilient against four consecutive dry years - such an event having not been observed in the last 100 years of historical rainfall data - VWPL Drought Management Plan (DMP) has been developed to demonstrate how VWPL plans to provide a secure supply of water and protect the environment during dry weather and droughts. VWPL monitors indicators such as rainfall, groundwater levels, reservoir storage, and customer demand within the water resource zone, in order to detect the onset of a drought, assess its severity, and implement appropriate actions through its duration. From these indicators, drought triggers have been defined to identify when the different levels of a drought are reached and what actions need to be taken accordingly. Drought actions will be implemented to reduce water demand (demand side actions) and to maintain the water supply (supply side actions). Demand side actions include voluntary water saving initiatives, implementation of Temporary Use Bans (TUBs), reduction of the Leckford Bridge export, Non-essential Use Bans which will be subject to Drought Order, and ultimately Emergency Drought Orders. Supply side actions will focus on maximising the abstraction primarily from Tidworth BH2 and BH3, secondarily from Chalkpit and eventually by-passing partially the GAC (Granular Activated Carbon) filtration process to compensate for the loss of Chalkpit should the groundwater level drop below the bottom of the well. Note: the supply side actions would not require dro...
Non-technical summary. It is important to understand the mechanisms of climate induced effects on recovery of lakes to identify cost efficient management measures and to set up reasonable reference conditions and ecological classification. These mechanisms were studied by Work package W5.2 using extensive data on ecological quality indicators and key environmental variables. Based on data and models the following results were drawn:
Non-technical summary. Hypoxia is a mounting problem affecting the world’s coastal waters, with severe consequences for marine life, including death and catastrophic changes. The deleterious effects of hypoxia can be amplified by warming. Global warming will contribute to decrease the global average dissolved oxygen in the oceans worldwide, and may also affect the oxygen requirements of marine benthic macrofauna. Increasing temperature diminishes oxygen solubility and increases the respiration rates of organisms, as temperature plays a fundamental role in regulating metabolic processes. Increased temperature will likely affect the responses of marine benthic organisms to hypoxia because metabolic rates increase exponentially with temperature. Ocean warming is expected to increase the vulnerability of benthic macrofauna to reduced oxygen concentrations and expand the area of coastal ecosystems affected by hypoxia. Here we evaluate the effects of warming in the oxygen thresholds for benthic macrofauna with the basis of a literature survey.
Non-technical summary. In this deliverable we have evaluated how selected BQE´s (Biological Quality Elements) and metrics react to nutrient loading reduction. We concentrate on fish, zooplankton (not a BQE today, but hopefully in the future as it is an important indicator) and phytoplankton. Too few data were available on macrophytes and macroinvertebrate to draw any firm conclusions. The conclusions are as follows:
Non-technical summary. (NTS) The Consultant will prepare, in consultation with the Client, a concise, over-arching, standalone NTS. The NTS will be written in non-technical language and the Consultant will ensure that the NTS can be used to demonstrate compliance with the EBRD requirements, and provide confirmation that the documents are ready for public disclosure. An indicative list of issues to be included in the NTS is provided in Annex 6.
Non-technical summary. This Draft Final ESIA Report has been prepared as part of the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) process on selected wastewater treatment and transfer options of the Lusaka Waste Water Project (LWWP) on behalf of the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) and the KfW Development Bank (KfW). The specific objective of this report aims to identify potentially negative and positive environmental and social impacts associated with the project implementation of the selected option – here Option 5 - and to mitigate any potential negative impacts and monitor the related aspects.
Non-technical summary. This guidance provides “cook books” for the development of common metrics and assessment systems to be applied for different Biological Quality Elements and water types. It is for internal use within the WISER project and might in a later stage be extended by best practise examples and be made available to the Geographical Intercalibration Groups. The first purpose of the guidance is to develop common metrics, i.e. common yardsticks (“international currencies”) against which national assessment systems can be compared. The common metrics which will be developed by the WISER project will support the intercalibration process for the Water Framework Directive. Due to the strict time schedule of the intercalibration exercise the common metrics must be based on preliminary data evaluation; this guidance outlines the procedure to ensure that common metrics will be developed in a comparable way for different organism groups (Biological Quality Elements) and water types. Second, the guidance outlines a methodology for developing assessment systems. This methodology has several commonalities with the common metric development, but is based on a more sophisticated data evaluation. Guidelines for indicator development Document history (and future) Version 1 produced by Xxxxxx Xxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx Xxxx (UDE) by 15/12/09. Commented by the members of the WISER Steering Group by 4/1/10. Version 2 produced by UDE based on these comments. Commented by the relevant workpackage leaders and workpackage scientists (WP3.1 to 4.4) (by 31/1/10), individually: WP3.1 (Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx) WP3.2 (Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx, Xxxxxx Xxxxx, Xxxxxx Xxx, Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxxx, “Katrit”) WP3.3 (Xxx Xxxxxx, Xxxxxxxxx Xxxxx) WP3.4 (Xxxxxx Xxxxxxxxx) WP4.1 (Xxxxx Xxxxxxxxxx) WP4.2 (Xxxxx Xxxxxx-Xxxxxx, Xxxxx Xxxxx) WP4.3 (Xxxxx Xxxxx, Xxxx Xxxxxx Xxxxxxx, Xxxxxxx Xxxxxx) Version 3 produced by UDE based on these comments. Most of the minor comments have been taken on board and not been documented in detail. For the major comments an overview was compiled listing whether or not the comments were included and the resulting changes (see Annex).
Non-technical summary. The increasing human pressure on the coastal zone is rapidly deteriorating coastal environmental quality, particularly since year 1950. Policies aiming at improving coastal water and ecosystem quality are a priority in European countries (Water Framework Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive, Habitats Directive) as well as in other countries and regions in the Globe (e.g. USA, Clean Water Act). Well developed seagrass beds provide many important services to coastal ecosystems, such as increased biodiversity and coastal protection, which disappear when seagrass distribution and abundance decline in response to human pressure. Seagrasses therefore have a large potential as indicators of ecological quality. This deliverable represents a compilation of seagrass indicators included in European monitoring programs. The compilation shows that a strikingly diverse range of seagrass metrics is in use, i.e. 35 specific seagrass metrics and 20 metrics on associated vegetation, fauna and macroalgae are making part of the seagrass indicators. The widespread use of seagrass indicators in European monitoring programs reflects the value of these marine benthic vegetation components as canaries of marine ecologic status. The metrics composing the compiled seagrass indicators describe various aspects of the seagrass community and associated flora and fauna and can, on this basis, be categorised in seven different categories: ‘distribution’, ‘abundance’, ‘shoot characteristics’, processes’, ‘chemical constituents’, ‘associated flora and fauna’ and ‘macroalgae’, of which the first five relate directly to the seagrasses. The indicators and their metrics can typically not be extracted from the same type of raw data, and the different categories of metrics may also show different sensitivities and time scales of response to pressures. The metrics are, therefore, not directly comparable but may supplement each other in the evaluation ecological status. The large diversity of metrics highlights a need to further explore the sensitivity and time scales of responses of metrics and indicators to pressures in order to assist managers selecting the most appropriate tools for a given purpose and type of ecosystem.
Non-technical summary. Europe has decided to manage its surface waters with regard to the ecological status they achieve. Here we present an overview of 297 assessment methods for European aquatic ecosystems focussing on the implementation of scientific concepts and standards of aquatic bioassessment. Twenty-eight countries reported mostly on methods applied to rivers (30 %), followed by coastal waters (26 %), lakes (25 %) and transitional waters (19 %). More than half of the methods assessed macroscopic plants or benthic invertebrates. Other methods assessed phytoplankton, fishes and phytobenthos. Method availability was highest in countries of Central and Western Europe. Among different sampling practices two main strategies were discernable: Small-scale sampling of the taxonomically diverse groups of benthic invertebrates and phytobenthos that require elaborate processing, and large-scale sampling of vast, species-poor plant stands or the mobile fish fauna. About three-quarters of methods identified organisms to species-level while especially phytoplankton-based methods referred to class- or phylum-level, or to no taxonomic information. Out of the nine metric types distinguished, river methods featured more sensitivity and trait metrics while for the other water categories abundance metrics prevailed. Fish-based methods showed the highest number of metrics used per method. Most methods focussed on the detection of eutrophication and organic pollution. Habitat loss was mainly assessed by methods applied to rivers and transitional waters. The pressure-impact relationship of about one-third of methods was not tested empirically with methods for transitional waters being the least validated. Status boundaries were mostly defined using statistical, non-ecological approaches. The existing method diversity clearly obstructs comparable status classification among European surface waters . We advocate better reflection of the necessary sampling effort and precision, full validations of pressure-impact relationships and an implementation of more ecological components into classification. The success of European aquatic bioassessment will significantly depend on necessary improvements resolving the issues highlighted in this review.
Non-technical summary. OUTCOMES ACHIEVED TO DATE Consultation with the recreational fishing sector and fisheries management agencies occurred through a series of workshops held throughout 2007 and 2008. Inputs into the funding needs of the sector were identified at both the state/federal and national level. The consultants investigated current revenue options used in Australia and overseas, particularly the USA, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Options of hypothecation of existing taxes or a new tax on fishing related expenses were investigated through discussion with the Australian Government. The results of the consultants’ research were provided in an extensive report and the attributes, both negative and positive of each option were assessed. Potential flaws with specific options were identified and the consultants made recommendations on which options they felt were most likely to succeed. Recfish Australia invited attendees of the stakeholder workshops to a focus group to discuss the report and recommendations. The discussions arising from that focus group helped form the recommendations of the Recfish Australia board which were distributed together with the final report. Historically, the recreational fishing sector in Australia has always relied on governments to provide resources to develop and promote the sector. The idea of a long term, strategic revenue stream independent of government formed the basis of this scoping study. An independent revenue stream would allow the sector’s representative groups to develop long term plans for capacity building, succession planning, promotion and marketing of recreational fishing, Research, Development & Extension, restoration projects, etc which in turn will deliver direct benefits to the fishing public. Several options for strategic funding mechanisms were considered including hypothecation of existing taxes and the raising of new levies on fishing related purchases. Most of these were rejected based on government policy or difficulties with implementing new “taxes”. A broader roll out of general fishing licences or boating levies was considered as one possible source of funding at state/territory level while the establishment of a permanent recreational fishing trust was considered as an option at a national level to fund activities of national importance. Both of these streams, however, rely on some form of government involvement. The only options for a truly independent stream for the recreational fishing sector involves ...
