Freshwater - Outlook 2020 (United Kingdom)

SOER 2010 Common environmental theme (Deprecated)

Topics: Water and marine environment

This page was archived on 21 Mar 2015 with reason: A new version has been published

SOER Common environmental theme from United Kingdom

Topic: Freshwater

Published: 26 Nov 2010 Modified: 11 May 2020

2015 predictions for water bodies classified as ‘good’ overall status compared to 2009 are shown below

Percentage of water bodies classified as Good overall status¹, 2009 and 2015
Country	England		Wales		Scotland		Northern Ireland
Year	2008	2015	2008	2015	2008	2015	2008	2015
Rivers	25	29	29	39	56	63	20	56
Lakes	35	36	39	39	66	71	27	32
Estuaries	8	8	29	29	85	85	0	29
Coasts	35	36	67	67	94	97	40	65
All surface waters	26	30	31	39	64	69	21	55
Groundwater	38	39	69	69	76	85	97	97
All waters	26	30	32	40	65	71	28	59
Notes:
1. Figures include 'overall potential' where water bodies are artificial or heavily modified. Some water bodies will never achieve good overall status because they have been physically altered for a specific use, such as navigation, recreation, water storage or flood protection. Overall potential is based on the quality that can be achieved given a water bodies changed conditions.

Under the current ‘High Emissions’ climate change scenario, precipitation in the 2080s in the South East would decrease by 50 per cent in summer, and increase by up to 30 per cent in winter, whereas in the North West, it may decrease by 30-40 per cent in summer and increase by 20-25 per cent in winter. Unless we change our current water management and behaviour, we will face serious threats both to the security of our water supplies and to the health of our water environments and nature conservation sites.

Population growth and changes in household size mean more houses are needed in some areas where abstraction is not currently sustainable.

The probability and severity of flooding is likely to increase in the future due to climate change and human actions. Figure 9 shows the different levels of damage that could occur in the future as a result of differing levels of emissions and climate change.

Figure 9: Average annual damage from flooding across the UK expressed as a percentage of GDP – present day and different emission scenarios for the 2080s