Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the dataset produced by the Environment Agency Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD) Classification Status Cycle 2, published on 29 September, why no rivers in Somerset meet the current criteria for good ecological status or ecological potential.

While water quality in rivers has generally improved since the 1990s, recent progress has slowed. The 2019 Water Framework Directive classification revealed that no waterbodies in England meet the criteria for good chemical status and therefore do not meet the criteria for overall good ecological status or ecological potential. This compares with about 97% of waterbodies achieving good chemical status in the 2016 classification.

This apparent decline in results is largely due to the use of new monitoring methods rather than a sudden deterioration in water quality, and this means that the 2016 and 2019 classifications are not directly comparable. The use of new monitoring methods by the Environment Agency (EA) to assess the presence of a number of now banned or closely regulated chemicals has meant that in many rivers in Somerset the chemical classification has reduced, although all the other chemical and biological elements which the EA monitors remain largely unchanged. This new method has resulted in a more comprehensive assessment of certain substances in the environment and will allow the EA to begin to understand and address the legacy of these chemicals.

The EA continues to monitor rivers in Somerset and seek improvements in light of this latest classification. It does this by working in partnership with a wide range of local and national organisations to reduce pollution and tackle the areas of biggest concern like storm overflows, working with farmers to support environmentally friendly farming that doesn’t damage water quality, and responding to water quality incidents and prosecuting polluters where applicable.