Water for life and livelihoods: river basin management plans
Water in rivers, estuaries, coasts and aquifers will improve under measures set out in our river basin management plans, drawn up for river basin districts across England and Wales under the Water Framework Directive.
River basin management plans protect and improve the water environment and have been developed in consultation with organisations and individuals.
They contain the main issues for the water environment and the actions we all need to take to deal with them.
Our river basin management plans have been approved by the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Welsh Minister.
See the plans:
Catchment based approach for a healthier water environment
Catchment partnerships will coordinate action by local communities to protect and enhance our water environment.
Find out about our work to set up and support these partnerships and how you can get involved:
External funds could help deliver catchment improvements:
We apologise but the 'signposts to external funds' document is currently being revised and will be republished here shortly.
The Environment Agency is administering the Catchment Restoration Fund (CRF) to support third sector groups to bring forward projects that will be at a catchment level to:
- restore natural features in and around watercourses
- reduce the impact of man-mad structures on wildlife in watercourses
- reduce the impact of diffuse pollution that arises from rural and urban land use
The first two rounds of the Catchment Restoration Fund have now concluded with projects that will deliver habitat improvement, improved access for fish or reductions in diffuse pollution to over three hundred water bodies. To find out more about CRF and the ongoing progress:
In Wales, the Environment Agency Wales is inviting proposals from organisations to deliver partnership projects that improve the ecology of the water environment. Find out how to apply to deliver a project:
Programme of investigations
Our programme of investigations for river basin management planning sets out how many investigations we plan to complete until December 2012. It lists those investigations which have been completed, those which are currently in progress and those we plan to start.
We will publish an updated programme every three months. For more information about specific investigations please contact us:
An investigation will be carried out where we have not set an objective of 'good' because of uncertainty. We will complete an investigation to resolve this uncertainty for the next river basin management plan. Uncertainty may require us to:
- confirm the water body is failing
- investigate cause of failure
- investigate which actions to take
Where possible, we will use this information to take action during the planning cycle.
We aim to complete our investigations by December 2012. See our programme of investigations:
Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive
The Floods Directive is a sister directive to the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Both directives use the same unit of management (river basin districts) and are based on the same six year cycle of planning.
