Overview: River engineering no longer needs to focus entirely on engineered structures; alternative ‘soft’ engineering has an increasingly important part to play
To date, many of the mitigation measures aimed at water pollution control have focused on influencing and changing land management practices such as fertiliser application and cultivation methods. However, at ADAS we believe alternative ‘soft’ engineering solutions have an increasingly important role to play in both rural and urban environments. No longer does river engineering need to focus entirely on engineered structures such as flood walls and culverts.
Often adapted from other industries, these can intercept water and facilitate the removal of contaminants, such as pesticides, and aid water filtration prior to entry into surface water and groundwater systems. Included are systems such as reedbeds, biobeds, ponds and other vegetated buffer strips. Sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) are also being looked at for adaptation in the removal of such contaminants. Whilst technical and regulatory hurdles still need to be overcome before such technologies can be fully adapted to rural situations, initial results look promising.
Getting to the source of the problem
Water companies can no longer afford simply to build themselves out of trouble to remove pesticides, nitrates and other contaminants from drinking water. Nitrate levels are continuing to rise in many areas, pesticides are leaking into watercourses from farmland throughout the system, and the sources of sufficient clean water able to meet the greater consumer demand for drinking water at increasingly high standards are drying up.
Against this worsening scenario, the latest round of the water industry’s spending review of the next five years’ plans has opted to ditch many of the environmental schemes that offered a sustainable route to reduce the diffuse pollution at source. Up to a third of the bids for environmental scheme funding are believed to have been slashed to hold water bills down, leaving only those schemes deemed crucial to meet statutory water-quality obligations.
We have the opportunity to create a long-term strategy to improve water quality in the UK. Yet the industry has once again turned to engineering solutions, with plans for ever-more complicated and sophisticated treatment works. Water UK, the water industry association, estimates the new plans will cost £450M to implement and run between 2005 and 2010, carrying a heavy environmental cost in energy, resource and disposal of pesticides and nitrates removed by treatment works. The system is not sustainable, either economically or environmentally. Water companies will have to treat more water in the future, to inevitably higher standards expected by regulators and consumers.
Unless something is done to reduce the levels of diffuse pollution coming into the system, the treadmill of ever-increasing investment and operating costs will continue to drive up water bills.
Integrated Catchment Management
It requires a sea change in the attitude of water companies and Government to step away from the short-term cycle of investment in treatment works and to address the long-term route of reducing diffuse pollution sources through integrated catchment management.
The whole ethos about environmental policy, including the Water Framework Directive, is that it is sympathetic with the environment and develops a long-term sustainable approach with minimal impact on habitats and the flora and fauna. Building and operating yet more treatment works is hardly compatible with this approach. In fact, the Directive actually directs governments to reduce the level of purification treatment required, under Article 7 of the legislation. Furthermore, the Directive requires measures to reverse upward trends in water contaminants entering the system from groundwater. If the UK is to comply with the EU Directive, then it will have to adopt a more integrated approach. Countries including Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have already demonstrated what can be achieved, which will only further fuel the EU politicians’ resolve to address diffuse pollution through an integrated approach, and the possible imposition of measures, which the UK will have to follow.
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