Background to consultation

Scotland is in a strong position in terms of its water environment, as much of our surface water and groundwater is in very good condition. We also now have in place an integrated framework to protect and improve our water environment through the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 ("the WEWS Act"), which transposed the Water Framework Directive, and the Water Environment (Controlled Activities) Regulations 2005 (" CAR"), introduced earlier this year.

However, our water bodies are under pressure from a variety of uses. We need to ensure that water use is sustainable, in order to protect aquatic life, and also to safeguard resources for use in the future. The framework provided by the WEWS Act and CAR will be vital in ensuring that we can protect the quality of the waters we have, and where necessary and practicable, improve the status of those that are under pressure.

The key mechanism for delivering improvements to the water environment will be the river basin management planning process. This will identify the improvements to the water environment that it is technically feasible and proportionate to make, how and when these improvements can be made and, therefore, the objectives we expect to achieve in the period covered by the River Basin Management Plan.

The Scottish Executive is currently developing policy on two of the key components of the river basin management planning process:

The development and use of environmental standards to protect aquatic ecosystems; and The setting of appropriate environmental objectives through the river basin management planning process. These processes, although separate, are interdependent and inform each other. For that reason, the Executive is consulting simultaneously on proposals for these key components of the river basin management planning process.

This paper discusses the development of the first phase of environmental standards for the Water Framework Directive and how they support implementation of the WEWS Act.

The draft policy statement " Principles for Setting Objectives in the River Basin Management Plan" sets out how we will use the provisions in the Directive to set objectives which protect both the water environment and the continued sustainable use of this valuable resource. Copies of this document can be obtained from the Scottish Executive website at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/Recent or by contacting the Water Division - see details on page 1 of this paper.

We suggest you may wish to read these two papers together.