Sutton and East Surrey Water Long-term Environmental Studies

Previous studies have focused on balancing the amount of groundwater abstracted for drinking water supply with the amount and/or quality of water within the natural environment. Royal Haskoning will now investigate the extent to which SESW's abstractions may be contributing to any deterioration in wildlife at the two sites when compared with other factors such as the dewatering of local mineral workings, urban development and pollution.

Surveys characterising the aquatic plants and animals present within local water bodies will be undertaken and compared with the aquatic wildlife expected under natural conditions. The extent to which any difference between these can then be directly explained by SESW's groundwater abstractions will then be evaluated and, where appropriate, plans to improve wildlife within each water body will be developed.

Under the European Union's Water Framework Directive, the UK's Environment Agency has tasked SESW with undertaking these investigations in order to meet the UK's obligations to achieve new ecological objectives, designed to protect and, where necessary, restore the structure and function of aquatic ecosystems themselves, and thereby safeguard the sustainable use of water resources. Future success in managing the UK's water environment will be judged principally by the achievement of these ecological goals.

These three to four-year projects will allow the Royal Haskoning project team to collect new scientific data, use its in-house expertise, and apply its commercial awareness and experience of working with the Environment Agency, to create a long term, sustainable means of protecting future water supplies for local people whilst also improving the environment.

Royal Haskoning started work in June and the first step of the project will be to understand where there are critical gaps in the currently available data, as a result of which a number of ecological and hydrogeological surveys will be undertaken to complete the picture.