River Basin Management Plans

Overview

River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) aim to prevent deterioration of the water environment (groundwater, rivers, lakes, estuaries and transitional coastal waters) and improve water quality by managing water in natural river basin districts. They look at ecological, physio-chemical, quantitative and morphological aspects of the water environment and require improvements take account of economic aspects, including costs and benefits. The plans must list the environmental objectives for each river basin district, justify how and where alternative objectives have been used and summarise the programmes of measures.

The competent authority in the UK for river basin planning is the Environment Agency and delivery is made through Catchment Based Partnerships (CaBa). RBMPs were last published in December 2022 and the statutory environmental objectives they contain, replace the previous 2015 plans. They set out the environmental objectives for the water environment and a high-level summary of the measures needed to achieve those objectives. The preparation of the 2022 RBMPs was co-ordinated with the preparation of the updated Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs). The updated plans:

• Improve resilience to future climate impacts while informing the delivery of existing flood programmes.
• Work in partnership to deliver wider resilience measures. These include nature-based solutions, property flood resilience and sustainable drainage systems.
• Plan and adapt to a changing climate through developing longer-term, adaptive approaches.
• Contribute to wider benefits for local places including climate mitigation and adaptation, nature recovery, as well as integrated water management.

The regulations specify a 6-yearly review.

RBMP and Estuaries and Coasts

The updated River Basin Management Plans (RBMPs) were published in December 2022, which seek to establish an integrated approach to the protection and sustainable use of the water environment. During previous RBMP consultations, stakeholders highlighted an insufficient focus on estuaries and coasts (E&C) within RBMPs generally. A RBMP Estuaries and Coasts Information Pack has therefore been produced to help signpost and provide further guidance to stakeholders with a specific interest in the E&C environment. It focusses on opportunities or suggested mechanisms to support the delivery of the potential measures of relevance to E&C, either through direct actions within the E&C environment, or indirectly, by taking actions upstream and applying a ‘catchment to coast’ approach.

Mapping of RBMP Condition, Objectives and Protected Areas

The South East RBMP map explorer provides a mapping resource to show each catchment and the data behind it. It also shows the protected areas including habitat sites, shellfish waters, drinking waters, nutrient sensitive areas and shellfish and bathing waters.

River Basin Management Plan Targets

River Basin Management Plan targets are to achieve Good Environmental Status. 

The Regulations recognise that some water bodies, such as the Solent, have been significantly physically modified to support various uses which provide valuable social and economic benefits and are designated as Heavily Modified Water Bodies (HMWB) . In many cases these modifications cannot be removed without having a major negative effect on the social and economic assets. HMWBs must achieve an alternative objective of 'good ecological potential' (GEP), rather than the more stringent 'good ecological status'. The Environment Agency is allowed to impose controls on agricultural and other activities to meet the objectives of the Regulations.

Partnership Delivery

The 2022 plans bring together a range of actions and investment to bring about the proposed measures setting out £5.3 billion worth of action by 2027 which is already planned and funded. This includes around £4.3 billion of action by water companies and more than £500 million to mitigate the impacts of agriculture on the water environment.

A wide range of partners is required for delivery including:  

• The Countryside Stewardship Scheme, rewarding farmers and landowners for their efforts to protect and improve their natural environment.
• England’s Nature for Climate Fund which will help support the delivery of the England Tree Action Plan and England Peat Action Plan.
• Measures funded by the Government’s Water Environment Investment Fund such as local projects to remove barriers from rivers and improve fish passage.
• Regional river, estuary and coast restoration and flood management projects and partnerships to restore natural river flows, improve water quality, restore habitats and reduce the risk of flooding.

The South East River Basin Management Plan

The Solent lies within the South East River Basin Management Plan and is currently in moderate ecological status. The most recent RBMP does not have a stand alone report and southest data on the condition of catchments and the environmental objectives can be found on the data explorer and the map explorer. 

There are four major management catchments for rivers and inland waterways feeding into the Solent which all have associated Catchment Partnerships. The table below summarises the condition and objectives for each. It is important to note that the quality of these waters will affect the Solent Transitional and Coastal (TraC) waters.

 The South East Transitional and Coastal Waters Management Catchments includes 8 operational catchments. The information below summarises the condition and objectives for each. 

Description of the Health of RBMPs

The plans show that nationally only 16% meet the criteria for good ecological status and no surface water bodies are deemed to meet the criteria for achieving good chemical status. By far most Solent operational catchments, many of which are classed as heavily modified, are below good ecological health at present and all are in poor chemical health.  

Pollution from water treatment plants and agriculture are the key sources of the damage. Prior to the UK leaving the EU the UK was required to make sure all their waters achieved “good” chemical and ecological status by 2027 at the latest. This was later reduced the target to 75% of waterways reaching the single test of good ecological status by 2027 at the latest. The target for most waterways to achieve good status in both chemical and ecological tests has now been pushed back to 2063. By 2027, only 4% of waters are currently on track to be in good overall condition.

Wildlife Trusts report significant pressures from water demand and pollution. Including: the effect of record-breaking temperatures and low rainfall; the overuse of storm overflows to release raw sewage into rivers, even at times of dry conditions (as investment in sewage infrastructure had not kept pace with what was needed); that in most water bodies failures in condition are due to chemical pollution (often historic) from landfill sites, urban runoff or agriculture. The historic nature of much of this pollution makes it difficult to improve the condition. 

Comparison of 2015 and 2022 RBMP

The first RBMPs were released in 2009 and the previous in RBMPs in 2015, which included standalone reports for each region, (including the South East RBMP 2015) had detailed monitoring, objectives and a Programme of Measures for its operational catchments.

The 2022 targets to improve the chemical condition of water bodies have been pushed back from 2027 to 2063; as before the 2022 targets are not ambitious.  Many of the ecological targets set to achieve good by 2027 or 2033 are of low confidence due to disproportionate costs.

In the Solent Transitional and Coastal Waters catchments all of the management catchments have ecological status less than good (for many reasons but all suffer from problems due to dissolved inorganic nitrogen), although a number of operational catchments have improved from moderate to good, including Great Deep, Beaulieu River, Bembridge Harbour and Langstone Oyster Beds (in 2015 only Hatchet and Sowley Lagoons was classed as good for ecological health). Pagham Harbour operational catchment remains in poor ecological health as it did before due to physical modifications and coastal squeeze.

In November 2023 a judicial review found that Defra’s River Basin Management Planning was not legal.  It was brought by Fishing organisations in the High Court against the Government and the Environment Agency over its river improvement plans. The Court ruled that the Government, and the Environment Agency, had failed in their mandatory legal duties to review, update and put in place measures to restore rivers and other water bodies under the Water Framework Directive Regulations. The Angling Club argued that the River Basin Management Plan for the Humber district published in December 2022, comprised wholly generic or yet to be formulated steps, lacked the legally required measures necessary to restore the Upper Costa Beck in Yorkshire, such as review and tightening of inadequate discharge permits and other authorisations to tackle the root causes of pollution in the river.

Programme of Measures in South East RBMP

Specific programme of measures for the Southeast can be found on the a) summary of programme of measures excel spreadsheets and b) potential additional programme of measures spreadsheet. These measures are all dependent on the partnerships and funding mechanisms listed. The second spreadsheet is required as the plan states that is unlikely that existing funded measures and new initiatives currently in development will be sufficient to achieve all the environmental objectives of the river basin management plans, and that the additional spreadsheet presents potential new measures that could help achieve the environmental objectives of the river basin management plan.

In the first spreadsheet there are 121 measures categorised by management catchment andTransitional and Coastal Waters (TraCs). It is very hard to navigate these measures by specific catchments as they need to be sifted through to form a summary for the Solent's marine and coastal waters; the Environment Agency Southern team are planning to do this.  

There are three specific Transitional and Coastal Waters measures in the plan relating to the Solent.

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