The UK is committed to delivering high quality drinking water that meets standards set within the Drinking Water Directive. This means ensuring that source waters such as groundwater and surface waters remain of good quality.
Water UK has opted to take a risk-based approach to the protection of groundwater resources; risks are identified and assessed then appropriate, measured actions are taken to mitigate any impact on public health and on the environment.
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The risk-based approach allows for protective measures to be developed in the most sensitive areas and still allow for carefully managed industrial practices to take place safely.
Because groundwater as well as surface water is critical to the drinking water supply in the majority of the UK, it is imperative that both aquifers and abstraction sources are protected from contamination. The Environmental Agency (EA) has designated 2000 sites as needing groundwater protection in England, and has also established Source Protection Zones (SPZs) in those areas as part of its GP3 policy, Groundwater Protection: Principles and Practice, which framework allows for the protection of water supplies from any developments that could negatively affect the quantity and/or quality of the water supplies.
Source protection zones are established based on groundwater travel times, and these allow the EA to use the risk-based approach to assess whether or not to permit any activity that may have any kind of negative impact on groundwater. Once assessed, it can be decided where the highest levels of protection need to be given, according to which abstraction sources and source protection zones face the highest risk of negative impact on the quality of the drinking water.
The EA needs to have the flexibility to decide what activity, if any, can take place, and in which zones it can take place, dependant on the activity itself and on various local factors. This means that inevitably, applications for permits will have to be done on a case-by-case basis.
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