A New Approach to Sustainable Canal Sediment Management in Scotland

Citizen science plays a crucial role in advancing the objectives of the European Union's Water Framework Directive (WFD) and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Among the key strengths of citizen science is that it fills information gaps in the management and observation of aquatic ecosystems, especially small rivers that often lack national and sub-national agency monitoring. The present study explores opportunities and challenges of integrating citizen science data with those of Environmental Agencies. The current state of the art is discussed through an analysis of 85 publications dealing with freshwater citizen science, finding that 34 of the ones individuated actually use citizen-science generated data. These 34 studies were analysed in more details focusing on data quality and geographical distribution. Findings highlight that citizen-generated data reach an accuracy between 70% and 90% when compared to laboratory values, but despite this outcome there is often lack of trust in citizen science data and processes. This is reflected in a limited involvement with policymakers and regulatory agencies. The present publication highlights good practices, challenges and opportunities for collaboration with environmental agencies, giving examples of some projects to address the WFD and increase the impact of freshwater citizen science.

Emergy analysis applied to the estimation of the recovery of costs for water services under the European Water Framework Directive

The pre-conference tour prior to the 2008 British Dam Society conference in Warwick was to Earlswood and Rotton Park reservoirs, canal reservoirs built in the early 19th century. British Waterways, the undertaker for these reservoirs, is responsible for 3200 km of canal and river navigations in England, Wales and Scotland. Ninety reservoirs provide the water needed for lockage, evaporation and seepage losses. Rotton Park reservoir was constructed by Thomas Telford in 1827 as part of a comprehensive series of improvements to the Birmingham Canal. It continues to be used for canal water supply purposes.

Poster 1. Assessing ° ood risk for canals Robert Arrowsmith British Waterways, Brindley Suite, Willow Grange, Church Road, Watford, Hertfordshire WD17 4QA, UK British Waterways manages 3000 km of canal and river navigations. A methodology for estimating ®ood risk in canals has been developed over the last three years. Flood risk is assessed in two stages. Initial screening uses estimates of catchment in®ow derived from ®ood-studies report (FSR) methods. If the ®ood risk is above a threshold value a more detailed assessment is undertaken using the Flood estimation handbook, following a detailed on-site assessment of the catchment and canal. For both stages all ®ows into the canal are estimated, together with the potential for out®ow over ®ood weirs, etc. The inherent storage within the canal is also taken into account. The methodology provides a basis for prioritizing engineering works to improve the level of protection for the canal. The methodology is ®exible enough to allow changes in ®ood risk to be incorporated as the e¬ects of climate change are better understood.

The pre-conference tour prior to the 2008 British Dam Society conference in Warwick was to Earlswood and Rotton Park reservoirs, canal reservoirs built in the early 19th century. British Waterways, the undertaker for these reservoirs, is responsible for 3200 km of canal and river navigations in England, Wales and Scotland. Ninety reservoirs provide the water needed for lockage, evaporation and seepage losses. There are three reservoirs at Earlswood – Engine pool, Windmill pool and Terry's pool. They were constructed in the early 19th century to supply the Stratford-upon-Avon canal, a function which they serve to this day.

This book was developed to facilitate implementation of a programmatic approach using selected scientific methods for screening climate change and disaster risks, and integrating appropriate resilience measures into water, hydropower, and dam investment projects. As the World Bank Group steps up its activities in both the water and energy sectors, the risks of climate change and disasters need to be better understood and managed to ensure sustainable, resilient, and cost-effective outcomes. This increased awareness is particularly important for hydropower, water supply reservoir, and dam projects, given that climate change is projected to significantly affect water resources by changing mean annual river flows and hydrologic variability, thereby causing more extreme droughts and floods. For many countries, hydropower is now the largest source of affordable renewable energy . This is especially true in regions like Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, which are characterized by significant untapped hydropower potential and water shortages.The remainder of this book is organized into nine chapters and an appendix: Chapter 2: Climate Change, Sediment Management and Sustainable Development discusses the importance of reservoir sediment management for preserving reservoir storage and illustrates how it contributes to satisfying the tenets of sustainable development. Chapter 3: Overview of Sedimentation Issues discusses the importance of reservoir storage and the impacts of reservoir sedimentation up- and downstream of dams. Chapter 4: Sediment Yield provides an overview of sediment yield, describes the important factors that determine the magnitude of sediment yield, and presents ways to estimate sediment yield. Chapter 5: Patterns of Sediment Transport and Deposition describes techniques for estimating the amount of sediment that will be deposited in a reservoir. Chapter 6: Sedimentation Monitoring discusses sedimentation monitoring procedures, bathymetric mapping of sediment, and estimation of sediment bulk density. Chapter 7: Sediment Management Techniques presents an overview of activities of combat reservoir sedimentation. Chapter 8: Sediment Management at Run-of-River Headworks describes basic concepts to consider in the design or rehabilitation of run-of-river headworks with regard to sediment management. Chapter 9: Reservoir Sustainability Best Practices Guidance summarizes sediment management strategies that will provide a higher level of assurance that the project operation can be sustained indefinitely. Appendix A: Checklist for Sediment Management is for use by project proponents to help ensure that projects adhere to the recommendations put forth throughout the book. The checklist is divided into three sections: sediment yield, sustainable sediment management measures, and sediment patterns and impacts.

The European Water Framework Directive (WFD) is one of the most important legislative instruments in the water field. The overarching objective of the policy is the achievement of a “good status” in all waters of European Member States by the end of 2015. Important milestones include the analysis of pressures and impacts, a characterisation of water bodies and monitoring programmes. The effectiveness of these monitoring programmes and hence of the overall WFD implementation will depend highly on the ability of Member States’ laboratories to measure the status of water bodies. The chemical status of water bodies is linked to compliance with EU Environmental Quality Standards defined in a daughter directive. In order to assess the chemical status, a number of priority substances and priority hazardous substances have to be monitored. Requirements on the analytical methods to be used for chemical monitoring are laid down in terms of technical specifications by another daughter directive. In some cases, the requirements on analytical methods (e.g. limit of quantification and measurement uncertainty) for chemical monitoring under WFD pose a real challenge, even for state-of-the-art analytical techniques. This has initiated a number of European activities in the development of guidance documents, harmonisation efforts and demand-driven research. The main tasks, challenges and research needs related to chemical monitoring of water bodies under the WFD are presented, including an outlook on how these issues are tackled. This is completed by the presentation of actual chemical monitoring results from surface waters from the Republic of Ireland.

PurposeThis paper describes the efforts made by SedNet—the European Sediment Network—to generate attention for the inclusion of sediment in River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) under the European Water Framework Directive (WFD).Materials and methodsThe SedNet response to key WFD implementation events is described using the “three-streams and windows-of-opportunities model” published by John Kingdon in 1995.Results and discussionSedNet was initially a response to the realization that the WFD—which came into force in 2000—largely neglected sediment. For SedNet, it was clear from the beginning that the WFD objectives can be achieved only if sediment is included in RBMPs. The SedNet efforts inspired the establishment of a sediment management concept for the Elbe river basin. That concept was used as a basis for the full inclusion of sediment in the second Elbe RBMP (2015–2021). SedNet experts are currently involved in the drafting of the WFD Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) sediment document which will be completed in 2021 and that will provide guidance about how to include sediment in RBMPs.ConclusionsSince 2000, SedNet has persistently drawn attention to the need to include sediment in RBMPs. However, it was not until 2015 that the Elbe became the first European river basin to include sediment management fully in their RBMP. The 2021 WFD CIS sediment document and the focus on sediment in the Water Fitness Check in 2019 make it significantly more likely that the sediment will be included in the updates of WFD RBMPs in the near future.

The historical lack of classification and legislative control on lake quality has previously prevented these complex water bodies from being adequately protected until the European Water Framework Directive became operative. Their increasing importance for all their values and the sensitivity of many lakes to climate change, however, has heightened their profile. Their relative importance has recently been lifted further by the development of the ‘ecosystem services’ approach to recognize multiple values. This report discusses initiatives taken to address problems outside the legal frameworks, provides an analysis of the processes involved and outlines where improvements can be made and where the present arrangements are vulnerable. It identifies the need for all ‘players’ to have a common agenda and use a common language to aid consensus building and resource sharing. It also advocates that high‐quality communications are the key to community stewardship of lake catchments and education is the foundation for changing the initiatives driven by individual champions to a position where protection of lakes is, through a cultural shift or establishing a new paradigm of community responsibility in protecting vulnerable lakes, wetlands and their catchments.

Invasive exotic (alien) species have not been taken into enough consideration concerning the European Water Framework Directive (WFD) and other European directives until recently. The Dutch ministry responsible for water management is looking for ways to establish the impacts that invasive alien species may have on specified water types. This paper concentrates on the vulnerability of such water types to the introduction of exotic species. This new approach focusses on the system where the alien species are introduced into rather than only on the alien species themselves. We propose an equation that combines threats to and in water types with effects of particular species (observed or prognosticated). Numerical values used in the formula have been found by scoring a number of properties in different water types and species, which are specified in questionnaires. The results of the calculations are given as relative vulnerability scores (scale 1–10). By testing as many as 8 water types and 13 species, we demonstrate that this method is flexible and easy to use for water managers. Our results can be translated into classes of vulnerability, which are represented on geographical maps with colour codes to indicate different degrees of vulnerability in the different water bodies. This readily corresponds to the way countries are required to report to the European Union in the context of the WFD. The method can also be generalized using functional groups of (exotic) species instead of particular species.

Considering ecotoxicological effects on environmental and biota of a wide range of organic pollutants a stricter and combative campaign emerged at worldwide level in terms of their use and discharge into the environment. In the last decades, only in the European Union were created a large number of restrictive regulations of such organic chemicals, regulations that extend to all environmental matrices as water – European Water Framework Directive (WFD- 2000/60/EC), marine environment – European Marine Strategy Directive (MSD-2008/56/EC), soil – European Soil Framework Directive (SFD-2004/35/EC) and for different departments as chemical safety and use or biocides use, European Regulation for Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) and Biocides Directive (Council Directive 98/8/EC), respectively. Today mutagenic pollutants as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widely present at global scale, acting continuously on “biota’s health”. Therefore improvement of mass spectrometric detection of PAHs and their possible metabolites become an important issue in eco-toxicological fields. Once to could perform their mass spectrometric analysis optimization of PAH compounds isolation from complex biological matrixes (as vegetal, animals and human biological samples) had to be made. As isolation technique solid phase microextraction (SPME), liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and headspace extraction- solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) were improved obtaining the recovery factors between 72 – 118 %. Optimization of chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis procedures of these mutagenic species permitted their detection from such complex biological matrixes at very trace levels, namely between 0.06 – 0.47 ng⋅kg^-1 dry weight.

Depth distributions of Fucus vesiculosus L. and Zostera marina L. as classification parameters for implementing the European Water Framework Directive on the German Baltic coast

The European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC requires monitoring of organic priority pollutants in so-called whole water samples, i.e. in aqueous non-filtered samples that contain natural colloidal and suspended particulate matter. Colloids and suspended particles in the liquid phase constitute a challenge for sample homogeneity and stability. Within the joint research project ENV08 “Traceable measurements for monitoring critical pollutants under the European Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC”, whole water test materials were developed by spiking defined amounts of aqueous slurries of ultra-finely milled contaminated soil or sediment and aqueous solutions of humic acid into a natural mineral water matrix. This paper presents the results of an European-wide interlaboratory comparison (ILC) using this type of test materials. Target analytes were tributyltin, polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the ng/L concentration range. Results of the ILC indicate that the produced materials are sufficiently homogeneous and stable to serve as samples for, e.g. proficiency testing or method validation. To our knowledge, this is the first time that ready-to-use water materials with a defined amount of suspended particulate and colloidal matter have been applied as test samples in an interlaboratory exercise. These samples meet the requirements of the European Water Framework Directive. Previous proficiency testing schemes mainly employed filtered water samples fortified with a spike of the target analyte in a water-miscible organic solvent.

In the European Water Framework Directive [1] the concepts underlying the management of the EU-waters are described. Attention is paid to many aspects such as the administration, emissions, objectives and monitoring. For each river basin these topics should be condensed in a river basin plan. The contents of such a river basin plan are described in Appendix VII of the EU Water Framework Directive and contain 11 topics. One of the topics is the plan of measures. In this paper the coherence between the topics of a river basin plan and the plan of measures is explored and is applied to the Elbe River in Germany. Towards river basin management plans for all European rivers In 2000 the European Commission accepted the European Water Framework Directive [1]. This directive formulates that plans for River Basin Management should be developed for each of the European Rivers. For the contents of these plans 11 requirements are formulated. The first part of the plan should be finished by 2004 while the plans should be operational by 2012. The requirements for a River Basin Management Plan, mentioned in the next paragraph, serve a number of administrative, legal and technical purposes. Each of these purposes requires different data and information. In the present paper the coherence between the 11 requirements is investigated from the point of view of one of the EU requirements “a summaty of the programme of measures, including how the (environmental) objectives must be achieved”. To that extent first the 11 requirements will be subdivided into 9 requirements which have a technical nature and 2 requirements which serve the consultation © 2002 WIT Press, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton, SO40 7AA, UK. All rights reserved. Web: www.witpress.com Email witpress@witpress.com Paper from: Hydraulic Information Management, CA Brebbia and WR Blain (Editors). ISBN 1-85312-912-7 410 Ilu[lwlllic /11/0 )’11/(llioll [Wlqyl?letl[ with the public. It will be shown that the 9 requirements with more technical nature can be fitted into elements or questions of a problem solving approach: ● What are problems in the river basin and who are the actors? ● What is the present state of the river basin ● What is the desired state of the river basin ● What are feasible measures’? ● What are the impacts of the measures on the present state of the basin? ● Which set of measures approaches the desired state satisfactorily? ● What are external factors influencing the state of the river basin? ● Is there sufficient administrative and public support for the selected measures? For the program of measures, the 9 EU requirements should not be regarded independent from each other, but the accuracy as well as the spatial and temporal resolution of data and models related to each requirement should be coherent. This point is elaborated in the paragraph on the design of the information system. In addition to the necessity of being coherent, the degree of accuracy also depends on the phase of the systems analysis, see e.g. Miser and Quade [2]: problem deftition, development of feasible measures, building and using models to analyse the effectiveness of the measures and ranking and selection of a set of measures. For instance in the problem deftition phase the data and know-ledge is less detailed than in the phase of using models to analyse the effects of a set of measures. As the development of a River Basin management plan for the Elbe River is very complex, the development of a Decision Support System was envisaged. An important by-product of the development of such a system is that it helps to structure the discussion between the actors. The Decision Support System presented in this paper is designed for impact assessment and evaluation, i.e. two steps in the systems analysis. The definition of Decision Support Systems has called for many discussions (Mallach [3]). We will use the term DSS in this paper as defined by Keen [4]: a computer system with the aim to assist managers in their decision processes in semi-structured tasks, support, rather than replace, managerial judgement and improve the effectiveness of decision making rather than its efficiency. Such a system should support the following functions: anafjwis of management alternatives communication among scientists and decision makers as well as the public management. fimction library fimction The design of the DSS should be open and sufficiently flexible to allow for the incorporation of more complex models if necessary, Furthermore, a pilot DSS should be generic and applicable for the management of other river basins in Germany and abroad. © 2002 WIT Press, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton, SO40 7AA, UK. All rights reserved. Web: www.witpress.com Email witpress@witpress.com Paper from: Hydraulic Information Management, CA Brebbia and WR Blain (Editors). ISBN 1-85312-912-7

According to the European Water Framework Directive (EWFD) the baseline analysis comprising characterization of water bodies, review of human impact and economic analyses of water use had to be finalized by the end of 2004. The EWFD emphasizes that the river basin management comprises surface water and groundwater, thus there is a strong need for integration of quantitative and qualitative aspects of surface waters and groundwater bodies within the hydrological cycle. To facilitate the accession process of Lithuania in relation to implementation of the EWFD a number of supporting modeling tools for river basin management were implemented. In Lithuania groundwater in particular has high priority, as it is the prime source of potable water supply. Thus tools for the integrated surface water and groundwater interaction has top priority in Lithuania. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate the advantages of integrating mathematical models in the EWFD implementation process. The paper therefore comprises a presentation of the selected tools with particular focus on model set-up and results in compliance with the EWFD.