Securing England’s water resources: right now, and for the future

Our views on England’s draft regional and water resource management plans, successes and areas for improvement, and what will happens next in that process.
Our views on England’s draft regional and water resource management plans, successes and areas for improvement, and what will happens next in that process.
Launch of the Chalk Stream Strategy’s Implementation Plan by Charles Rangeley-Wilson, Chair of the Chalk Stream Restoration Group
Chloe Hayes, Environment Monitoring Officer in the Environment Agency’s East Midlands area, explains how teams are working together to improve water quality in the River Ryton in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.
The problems facing water are complex, with multiple sources of pollution affecting water quality. One of the lesser-known areas of the Environment Agency’s work is cleaning up pollution from abandoned metal mines.
Mining played a major part in Britain’s rich industrial history, but this also left thousands of abandoned mines scattered across our landscape. Almost all these mines had closed by the early 1900s but they are still releasing harmful metals including lead, cadmium and copper. This is one of the top 10 issues for water quality in England as it harms fish and river insects. Abandoned mines are the largest source of metals to British rivers and seas (click here for more information). Pollution is localised to about 1,500km of rivers - mainly in the North East, Cumbria, Yorkshire & Cornwall.
Fisheries officer, Arnie Warsop, explains what saline incursion is and how the work of the Environment Agency protects up to half a million fish from these incursion events on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads.
In today's blog, we talk about beach wash ups and how the Environment Agency's role in responding.
Emma Billings provides an insight into the Environment Agency farm inspections taking place in Lincolnshire
In this blog post we explore the latest prolonged dry weather situation and how the Environment Agency has already been taking action.
Charlotte Hitchmough and Rupert Kelton from Action for the River Kennet talk about a project to improve river water quality and create new wetland habitat in a sub-catchment of the Kennet in Wiltshire. The Sparkling Streams project has repurposed an …
Deputy Director for Water Strategy and Partnerships, Richard Thompson, talks about how the importance of River Basin Management Planning as a tool for driving forward the changes needed for a prosperous water environment.