Planning to protect our canals and rivers

European initiative
These Plans are being produced across the whole of the European Union, according to a piece of legislation which all Member States have agreed to known as the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The Plans set out the current state of the water environment, including canals, rivers, lakes, reservoirs, estuaries, coastal waters and groundwater. They also set quality objectives to be met in the future, and lay down who has to do what, by when, to meet these objectives.

How good is our water quality?
The Plans show that while there have been big improvements in the quality of our waters, huge challenges remain. The WFD tells us to aim for 'Good' status, which allows only a 'slight' deviation from natural conditions.

In England & Wales only 23% of surface water bodies currently meet this standard - a much lower figure than previous national assessments have produced. This is because previous assessments only used a few measures of chemical water quality, whereas the WFD assessments use a much wider range of measures, covering not just chemical pollution but also physical impacts such as changes in water flows and in the physical structure of the water body.

Read more about water quality

What might navigation authorities have to do?
The main sectors that will need to take action are the water industry and agriculture. British Waterways and other inland navigation authorities, and their customers, stand to benefit from an improved waterway environment, but there are some actions they may need to take themselves, such as

• Preventing the spread of non-native invasive species

• Taking measures to allow fish to pass river weirs and other obstructions

• Continuing to mitigate the impacts of maintenance work such as dredging, bank protection, dewatering, and aquatic weed control

• Reducing abstractions from some sensitive waters used to supply canals

British Waterways is looking closely at the draft Plans to make sure water quality problems affecting its waterways, such as weed growth, are identified, and that any actions proposed for British Waterways are affordable and proportionate.

What can boaters do?
From a national perspective, boaters have a relatively low impact on the water environment. However, it is important that we all play our part, and there are some things everyone can do to contribute to a better water environment:

• Slow down – moving boats can uproot aquatic plants, create wash that erodes banks, and disturb sediment creating cloudy water. If you slow down you reduce these effects - and also use less fuel.

• Maintain your engine – oil leaking from engines should be caught on drip trays or otherwise isolated from the bilges, but can end up being pumped into the waterway by your bilge pump if allowed to build up. A well maintained engine also uses less fuel.

• Avoid ploughing through aquatic vegetation if you can – 'non-native invasive species' such as floating pennywort are increasingly choking waterways with excessive growths, and they can spread rapidly if chopped up and spread by passing boats

• Take care with your grey water – waste water from your sink and shower probably discharge overboard into the waterway, so use environmentally friendly detergents (especially phosphate-free products), and dispose of cooking oil and other food products in your bin, not down the sink

• Minimise your use of antifouling paints (normally only used on vessels using estuaries and coastal waters)– and do not use those containing tributyl tin compounds, which are now known to be highly toxic to aquatic life.

More information on how you can reduce your environmental impact as a boater can be found on the Green Blue website.

Read the Plans
Twelve River Basin Management Plans in England, Wales and Scotland – one for each River Basin District - have been published in draft form by the Environment Agency and the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency. They are asking for people’s views by 22 June this year, before publishing the final version of the plans in December 2009.

Download the Plans for England and Wales, and the Plans for Scotland.

Last updated: 27/01/2009