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The water environment and achieving the environmental improvements

This section summarises the condition of the water environment in the Argyll and Lochaber area, the improvements we plan to achieve and the key pressures and impacts that we need to address. Catchment summaries of the condition of the water environment, the improvements we plan to achieve and the key pressures and impacts that we need to address are available alongside this document on the SEPA website.

Information on individual water bodies can be accessed through the web based interactive map on SEPA’s website.

Information on the classification, pressures, objectives and measures for the Scotland river basin district, as well as detailed supplementary information on how we classify and how objectives have been set, can be found in the Scotland river basin district plan.

The current condition of the water environment

The water environment includes all rivers, lochs, estuaries, coastal waters, artificial waters (such as canals and reservoirs) and groundwater. It also includes all the wetlands that depend on surface waters or groundwater for their water needs.

The classification process assesses the current condition of all water bodies over a certain size (rivers with a catchment area of more than 10 km² and lochs which have a surface area greater than 0.5 km²) and all estuaries and coastal water bodies regardless of size. These are referred to as baseline water bodies. River and lochs smaller than the size threshold (small water bodies) are not classified, however actions that partners are taking to protect or improve any aspect of the water environment are of interest to the Area Advisory Group.

SEPA has divided waters in the Argyll and Lochaber advisory group area into 364 surface water bodies (244 rivers, 6 canals, 38 loch water bodies, 73 coastal and 3 estuarine water bodies) and 20 groundwaters. Classifying the condition of each water body provides a picture of where the water environment is in good condition and where improvements need to be made.

For surface water bodies, ecological status is divided into five classes: high, good, moderate, poor and bad. This encompasses the spectrum, from water bodies in a near natural condition which are at high ecological status to those whose ecological quality has been severely damaged and which are at bad ecological status. Water bodies which have been significantly altered for human uses, eg for hydropower generation, are known as ‘heavily modified’. They are classified according to the same spectrum of five classes, but by ecological potential instead of status. This is a measure of the extent to which the water bodies' ecological quality has been maximised given the limits imposed by the physical modifications (eg a dam) necessary for the bodies' use. The same assessment applies to artificial water bodies such as canals. For more information on heavily modified and artificial water bodies see Chapter 4 of the Scotland river basin district plan.

The classification of groundwater describes whether or not it is polluted, and whether or not the volume of any water being abstracted from it is sustainable without significant impacts on rivers or wetlands that depend on the groundwater. Unlike the five status classes applying to surface waters, two classes are used to describe the status of groundwater, good and poor.

The objectives of the Water Framework Directive are to improve any failing water bodies to good or high status and to prevent deterioration of those already at good or high.

The results show a positive picture in the Argyll and Lochaber area as 73% of all water bodies are at good or high ecological status or potential (Table 2 and Map 2).

Due to the generally rural, undeveloped nature of the area there are whole catchments where all the water bodies are at good or high ecological potential/status. The 384 water bodies in Argyll and Lochaber fall into 28 catchments. Of these, the following eight catchments, which contain a total of 19 water bodies, have no pressures and are already at good or high ecological status/potential:

• Fort William coastal;
• Loch Linnhe coastal;
• River Aline;
• River Etive;
• Gigha coastal;
• Iona coastal;
• Luing coastal;
• Easdale coastal.

Sixty coastal and three estuarine water bodies are also already at high or good ecological status/potential. The objective for these water bodies is to not deteriorate from good ecological status/potential.

Of surface waters in the area, 53 (14%) have been substantially changed in character for important social and economic purposes such as flood protection, hydropower generation, land drainage or water storage for drinking water supply. These are known as heavily modified water bodies. Twenty-eight of these are at good ecological potential. Another 14 (4%) of surface waters are artificial: six canal water bodies (the Crinan and Caledonian Canals are split into separate sections) and eight coastal lagoons. All of these are at good ecological potential.

In Argyll and Lochaber 100% of the groundwaters are at good status.

Map 2: Overall surface water classification for the Argyll and Lochaber advisory group area 2008 (click for larger image)

Pressures and risks

The main reasons for water bodies not achieving good status are:

• flow regulation and abstraction (changes to the natural flow and/or amount of water in rivers and lochs) caused by hydropower generation and, to a much smaller extent, public water supply provision;
  
• alterations to beds, banks and shores (morphology) caused by forestry pressures (mainly due to planting close to water bodies), channel straightening (for drainage on land used for mixed farming which affects only a small number), and creation of barriers to fish movement by hydropower generation, road transport and aquaculture;
  
• diffuse pollution (pollution coming from a number of dispersed sources) from phosphorus or organic inputs causing nutrient enrichment or acidification;
  
• point source pollution (pollution coming from one identifiable source such as an outfall pipe) from freshwater aquaculture and sewage disposal causing nutrient enrichment (only a small number);
  
• invasive non-native species - the risk posed by introduction and expansion of water related invasive non-native species.

This assessment has mainly been based on assessments against standards to give a broad understanding of the main pressures across the area. There may be cases, in particular for diffuse source pollution, where there are several similar pressures on one water body and some apportionment work is required to establish the source. The above list does not include all impacts and there are other issues that will also need to be addressed through river basin management planning. Diffuse pollution also presents a risk to protected shellfish growing waters and actions to investigate these impacts are included below.

Annex 1 gives an overview of the distribution of pressures across the area by showing the number of water bodies in each catchment affected by each pressure. Please note that some water bodies may be counted twice in these tables, because one water body may be affected by more than one pressure. Detailed information on impacts in each catchment, including the water bodies affected, measures and objectives, is included in the catchment profiles and in the water body information files, both available on SEPA’s website.

Objectives for the water environment

As Table 2 shows, the majority of Argyll and Lochaber’s water environment is in a very good condition. The task now is to improve the remaining failing water bodies to good ecological status by 2015 (or, if that is not feasible, over the first three river basin planning cycles) at the same time as ensuring no deterioration of any water bodies.

The overall goal of the Scotland river basin district is for 97% of water bodies to be at good or high ecological status by 2027. In the Argyll and Lochaber area we aim to have 371 surface water bodies (96%) at good or high ecological status by 2027. To achieve that, water bodies currently at good or high ecological status will be protected from deterioration, and action will be taken to enhance and restore others. Protecting the status of a water body does not just mean preventing deterioration of its overall status, because its status depends on the condition of the different elements such as the plant community, fish populations and water quality etc.

Restoring the water environment to good ecological status will take time, so improvements have been prioritised over the three river basin planning cycles. For the small proportion of waters for which achieving good ecological status by 2027 is not feasible^[3], all reasonably achievable improvements will be made. Comprehensive progress reviews will be undertaken during each period and will be reported in updates of this plan.

Table 3 describes how improvements to the water environment will be phased and Map 3 shows the location of improvements. The phasing has been designed so that the pace of improvement provides the time needed to develop and implement the necessary technical solutions and to make the required investments and adjustments without creating disproportionate financial burdens.

Map 3: Phased improvements in surface water quality over the three cycles (click for larger image)

Lower (less stringent) objectives than good status

Lower (less stringent) objectives have been set for eight water bodies in the Argyll and Lochaber advisory group area where we believe that good ecological status cannot be achieved even by 2027. Table 4 lists these and the reasons for the less stringent objectives.

Water bodies where deterioration of status has been permitted

We have allowed exemptions from the objective of preventing deterioration in status for eight water bodies in the Argyll and Lochaber advisory group area, for the reasons shown in Table 5.

Protected area objectives

Many water bodies are also part of protected areas identified as requiring special protection because of their sensitivity to pollution or their particular economic, social or environmental importance. Some water bodies in Argyll and Lochaber have been designated as protected areas because they:

• support economically important shellfish or freshwater fish stocks;
  
• have been designated as bathing waters;
  
• provide water for human consumption;
  
• support species or habitats identified as requiring special protection under European legislation.

The objectives for these include any additional protection needed to achieve the purposes for which the protected area was established.

In Argyll and Lochaber, many protected areas are already achieving the goals for which they were established. The objective for such areas is to protect them from deterioration. Further environmental improvements are needed for other areas that are currently not meeting their objectives. Planned improvements to these protected areas are summarised in Table 6.

Further detail on water dependent protected areas is available in Chapter 5 of the Scotland river basin management plan and in the Argyll and Lochaber catchment summaries.

In addition:

• all 80 drinking water protected areas (which include the 20 ground waters) in Argyll and Lochaber are meeting their current standards with none at risk of deterioration. Drinking Water Protected Areas are currently under review and any changes to designations will be reflected in updates of this plan;
  
• there is one nutrient sensitive protected area established under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive. These are not assessed against an environmental standard: instead, compliance is measured in terms of measures taken, such as improvements to sewage treatment works;
  
• all 13 protected areas for economically important freshwater fish (salmonid and cyprinid) in this area are currently complying with the required standards for water quality.

Shellfish growing waters and diffuse pollution

In most cases the reasons for the current shellfish waters failures are not clear. Further research, including a review of the Food Standards Agency Sanitary Surveys and possibly source tracking studies, is required to establish the pressures on these protected areas and therefore the measures required to improve and achieve the required standards. This work will be done as part of the planned diffuse pollution actions which are outlined below.

1. Bodies of groundwater are classed as either good status or poor status
2. Artificial water bodies are man-made water bodies, such as many canals
3. These waters include water bodies that are recovering from acidification (diffuse pollution), caused by the burning of fossil fuels in power stations, buildings and vehicles which, as shown in Table 4, can only recover in the longer term