EIA Quality Mark
Article
Integrating WFD in EIA: experience so far
Jo Murphy, Amy Cocker, Bruce Munro, Claire Vetori and Richard
Woodward
National Environmental Assessment Service, Environment
Agency
March 2012
The National Environmental Assessment Service (NEAS)
manages the environmental assessment of the Environment
Agency’s internal plans, strategies and projects. This article
explains how they have incorporated compliance with the
Water Framework Directive (WFD) into the environmental
assessment process, focusing on projects.
The Water Framework Directive is a European Directive which
introduces a new strategic planning process for managing,
protecting and improving the water environment. One of its
aims is to improve the ecology of water bodies, recognising that
changes to the hydromorphology (that is the shape and flow) of
any river, estuary, lake or coastal water (or water bodies) will
have an impact on the ecology. When planning our approach to
internal plans and projects, NEAS’s Environmental Project
Managers need to consider several key issues (such as those in
Box 1).
Box 1 Example WFD issues to consider in project development
how we incorporate the overall objectives of the Directive;
how we contribute to improvement of a water body, for
example what contribution we can make to implementing
actions included within the River Basin Management Plans
(RBMPs);
aiming not to compromise the future implementation of
actions included within the RBMPs by our activities or
prevent the water body from being able to reach good
status;
aiming to prevent deterioration in the status of a water
body (that is causing a decline in any of the elements that
make up status), or, if this is unavoidable;
ensuring that we are not in breach of the directive by
failing to properly justify instances where our activities
have affected Good Ecological Status or Potential or
caused deterioration.
Whilst within NEAS we have always aimed to influence options
to work more with natural processes and to mitigate the
negative impacts of our activities, the WFD does call for change.
For example it introduces:
a new water quality classification system and monitoring
data;
a greater emphasis on implementing better
environmental options (for example those that work
more with natural processes) and a legal need to include
WFD mitigation, if required;
the need to take greater account of hydromorphology
impacts in our assessments and build the skills and
capabilities that are needed to do this;
a way to improve our consideration of the
interrelationship of impacts and consequences and
cumulative effects, as required by environmental
assessment regulations;
the need to be more robust and transparent in our
assessment, decision making processes and conclusions,
particularly considering issues such as technical
feasibility or disproportionate cost; and
a need to introduce a formal system so that these
assessments and conclusions can be collated and
reported in the next round of RBMPs.
The WFD introduces greater legal imperatives for including
mitigation and for the consideration of better environmental
options. It therefore significantly affects our options appraisal,
design and decision making processes: we need a greater
awareness of the hydromorphological impacts of our proposed
options and an understanding of these consequences in relation
to WFD requirements.
We have found that the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
process is an effective way to integrate these considerations
and influence project development. This is in line with European
guidance, which recognises that integrating WFD requirements
with environmental assessment is an efficient and effective
approach.
1. Screening and Scoping – Integration of WFD and EIA
All our Flood and Coastal Risk Management (FCRM) schemes are
screened to identify those falling under Directive 2011/92/EU.
The EIA process is followed for such projects, reflecting
statutory requirements and good practice. To satisfy our duties
under the Environment Act, we also carry out the non-statutory
environmental assessment of projects. This consists of a
proportionate, fit-for-purpose assessment, designed to review
and address any potential environmental impacts of the
proposed project and identify the potential for environmental
improvements. To avoid duplication of effort and to reduce the
assessment burden we incorporate the requirement for other
assessments (including WFD or the Habitats Regulations) into
the overarching environmental assessment process.
An early review can identify where WFD assessment is not
required for some schemes, such as Health and Safety works,
most types of maintenance works and lower risk improvement
works.
For those schemes with the potential to directly or indirectly
affect water body status, more information is needed. The
Article 4.7 tests (which determine ultimate compliance) are not
run formally until it has been determined via an assessment
whether deterioration or failure to meet WFD objectives is likely
to occur. However, Article 4.7 conditions need to be considered
at a high level throughout the options appraisal and design
stages as they are fundamentally tied to mitigation or
improvement measures, consideration of options and
comparison of benefits analyses. As with EIA, this early
consideration of how the scheme could affect water bodies
requires an understanding of the nature and scale of the
proposal and the receiving environment.
Environmental assessment is an efficient mechanism to gather
the relevant information for WFD as standard areas such as
ecology or biodiversity, water quality and hydrology are likely to
already be part of the EIA, where significant impacts (positive or
negative) are expected. The effective collection of baseline data
requires a good understanding of how the whole system
functions and the relationships between water bodies. At the
screening stage this information has the potential to be very
limited or generic.
Successful WFD scoping requires the consideration of links
between: hydromorphology and ecology (in terms of
direct/indirect and cumulative impacts); the sensitivity of the
environment; and the magnitude of the impact with regard to
whether an effect will be seen at the water body level on a nontemporary basis. It also includes identifying which water bodies
are included and which elements are relevant. The integration
of WFD within EIA helps to improve our consideration of the
interrelationship of impacts with regard to compliance and
consequences.
From experience, we have found that early consultation with
appropriate technical specialists is key to successful scoping.
Integrating the proposed scope of the WFD assessment (in
particular which water bodies and of those which elements)
within the EIA scoping consultation helps shape and focus the
WFD assessment.
Decisions to scope water bodies and elements out of the
assessment should be robust, justified and recorded. This
ensures the decision making process is transparent, allowing
decisions to be revisited at any stage and understood,
particularly where scheme changes occur as compliance must
be reassessed.
Consideration of the WFD at the early screening and scoping
stages of the EIA process is important and must continue
throughout options appraisal with assessment of compliance
against the preferred option. This promotes efficiency as
options are not developed which would fail the WFD Article 4.7
tests.
2. Options appraisal
Defra sets out the Government’s policy on the appraisal of
FCRM including the requirement to consider the environmental,
and other, impacts of all proposals. The options appraisal
process is the first step in avoiding or minimising the adverse
effects of flood risk management. After identifying the
problem, the process requires the identification of alternative
solutions that are evaluated for their effectiveness in reducing
flood risk, together with their environmental, social and
economic performance. This ties in well with the iterative
nature of EIA appraisal activities.
FCRM solutions can manage risk from flood damage for people
and property as well as important environmental features and
flood risk management forms an important component of the
WFD (Article 1(e)). However, FCRM solutions may also create
conflicts with the WFD’s objectives to protect and improve the
aquatic environment. One of the key aims of options appraisal
is to try to achieve a balance between protecting people and
property from flooding, and protecting the natural and aquatic
environment. Selection of the most appropriate FCRM option
therefore means seeking to achieve a balance between the
technical, social, economic and environmental constraints, of
which the WFD forms an important component. It is important
in these early stages to ensure that the Article 4.7 tests are
considered, to help in the option selection.
Selection of such options can deliver multiple benefits, in terms
of reducing flood risk, and delivering positive outcomes for the
WFD. Through integration of EIA with project options appraisal,
this should ensure that not only are adverse environmental
impacts and deterioration of WFD water bodies avoided, but the
WFD’s objectives to enhance the status of aquatic ecosystems
and water bodies can also be achieved. A key aspect to
delivering WFD improvements is therefore to ensure that WFD
objectives become an integral part of the options appraisal part
of a project, rather than retrospectively developing WFD-specific
mitigation to address adverse effects in a latter part of the EIA
process.
The appraisal of scheme options requires the gathering of a
considerable amount of information on their relative
performance, the associated economic benefits, costs of
delivery and the associated environmental effects.
The way in which we describe and assess WFD impacts differs
from the standard EIA approach. This is because we need to
demonstrate whether a project is compliant or non-compliant. It
is not appropriate, for example, to assess whether an impact of a
project on an element is ‘moderate’ and significant or ‘minor’
and not significant.
As a result, by the time a preferred option has been identified,
the EIA and WFD assessment is usually significantly advanced
and there is a good understanding of the WFD-specific risks
with taking it forward.
The EIA and WFD assessment process is not seen as a
standalone exercise. Rather, EIA should be seen as a tool to
inform and influence the options appraisal so that, ultimately,
more sympathetic FCRM schemes are delivered. We also strive
through EIA to go beyond protection and deliver environmental
improvements or enhancements to an area, wherever it is
practical and cost effective to do so. In delivering FCRM
projects this may include, for example, exploring options to
create new wetland features, or re-connect rivers with the
floodplain and deliberately setting back flood embankments to
make space for water.
3. Assessment
Instead, a conclusion as to whether an impact would result in the
deterioration of that element from one status class to the next at
the water body level on a non-temporary basis is needed. If the
impact is temporary and would not (directly or subsequently)
affect the entire water body, it is unlikely that the activity would
be non-compliant. This is important as a project is either
compliant or non-compliant with the requirements of the WFD.
This context is crucial in determining whether the requirements
of the WFD will be met but is complicated by issues of
uncertainty.
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Ensuring that the assessment itself remains focused on those
elements that are of relevance to the particular water body/water
bodies that are scoped into an assessment needs careful
consideration. This is the approach that you would use whether
considering noise impacts, landscape and visual impacts or other
topics. Here, the particular elements to be considered are clearly
set out in the WFD and vary depending on the type of water body.
If not properly scoped, it can result in an assessment considering
more than it needs to or considering the wrong element.
Assessment activity must also coordinate the input of a range of
experts in hydromorphology and ecology, to undertake or
interpret surveys and to determine the impact and subsequent
effect on deterioration.
4. Reporting and monitoring
In order for the EIA to be an effective decision-making tool the
environmental statement (ES) must clearly communicate the WFD
assessment and findings to a wide variety of stakeholders such as
local planning authorities, statutory bodies, internal consultees
and the public.
As WFD is a legal instrument, we include a clear statement on
compliance within the ES, explaining why the scheme is expected
to cause ‘no deterioration’ and not prevent water bodies from
meeting their objectives; or alternatively, how the scheme meets
the conditions set out in Article 4.7. The statement would also be
expected to cover compliance to Articles 4.8 and 4.9, ensuring
that all water bodies are protected and that other environmental
legislation is not compromised.
Beyond legal compliance, the EIA is a driver for sustainable
development and WFD is another tool for achieving this. Further
to its principal aim of contributing to sustainable development,
the Environment Agency has specific responsibilities for WFD
actions, and our reports document the extent to which schemes
contribute to WFD objectives.
When integrating the discussion and assessment of the relevant
elements into the outputs, such as the ES, the link between the
biological elements and the ‘ecology’ or ‘flora, fauna and
biodiversity’ chapter should be made. Physico-chemical elements
can readily be picked up in the surface water chapter and it is
suggested that this chapter should precede those that cover the
biological and hydromorphology elements.
Groundwater water bodies can be covered in the chapter that
focuses on ground conditions. The baseline information for each
of the relevant water bodies scoped into the assessment can then
be referred to when considering the biological and
hydromorphology elements in more detail in later chapters. A
bespoke chapter may need to be included to cover
hydromorphology elements where there is no discussion of
estuarine/riverine processes or geomorphology.
Considering cumulative impacts is inherent in any EIA and
this provides a further opportunity to consider the collective
effects of the project in relation to the requirements of the
WFD.
For the improvements in water bodies to be delivered or for
deterioration to be avoided when schemes are built, it is
important that the report clearly describes the required
mitigation. As the Environment Agency undertakes works on
many highly modified water bodies, the ‘EIA mitigation’ will
often be explicitly linked to the hydromorphological
mitigation measures not yet in place but identified as being
required for a water body to achieve its objectives. Ensuring
the precise use of terminology is a particular challenge when
integrating WFD into EIA. The correct use of ‘significance’
and ‘deterioration’ when describing impact, and the
difference between a scheme’s environmental impact
mitigation and a heavily modified water body’s (HMWB)
hydromorphological mitigation measures are just two
examples.
Monitoring the effects of developments is often a neglected
aspect of EIA, although we play a key role working with
project teams to ensure appropriate pre and postconstruction monitoring is in place and adequately funded.
We have found this to be particularly important with regards
to integrating WFD.
The dynamic nature of hydromorphology can make the
effects of changes difficult to predict, and even where
predictions can be made with relative confidence, there is
still not an established body of evidence on the ecological
effects of hydromorphological modifications. The
Environment Agency has conducted a Mitigation Measures
Monitoring Trial into the effectiveness of
hydromorphological mitigation on ecological indicators but
found direct correlation hard to prove, in part due to the
influence of other factors such as water quality.
Impact prediction in practice remains predominantly
qualitative and based on the opinion of a relatively small
number of experts. Monitoring is therefore often integral to
ensure the accuracy of predicted impacts of schemes, and
also contributes to our evidence base and to improving
impact prediction on future schemes. For example, an
Environment Agency navigation scheme in Kent is hoping to
trial colonisation rates of marine algae and seaweed on
different surfaces to evidence the effectiveness of cladding
in improving the ecological potential of steel piling.
Monitoring also provides an additional safeguard to legal
compliance, ensuring corrective action can be taken if
predicted effects do not result on the ground. A proposed
weir alteration in Oxfordshire includes pre- and postconstruction bathymetric surveys and flow rate monitoring
around a gravel bed and fish surveys to ensure no
deterioration in status.
Conclusion
We have found the overall process of environmental
assessment can be used effectively to integrate the work
necessary to consider whether a project is compliant with the
requirements of the WFD. This process can also be used to
promote its overarching objectives: to protect and enhance
the water environment. Through the environmental
assessment process, we can demonstrate that:
we meet the legal compliance requirements for ‘no
deterioration’;
we do not prevent the achievement of ‘good status’ or
‘good potential’; and
we are contributing to the delivery of the River Basin
Management Plans.