Download or read book Draft Flood and Water Management Bill written by Great Britain: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication contains a consultation paper, draft Bill, explanatory notes and an impact assessment. The proposals in the draft Bill aim to give effect to: the Government's response to Sir Michael Pitt's review "Learning lessons from the 2007 floods" (http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/pittreview/thepittreview/final_report.html and http://www.defra.gov.uk/environ/fcd/floods07/Govtresptopitt.pdf); "Future water - the Government's water strategy for England (2008, Cm. 7319, ISBN 9780101731928); and to the flood and water aspects of the Welsh Assembly Government's "Environment strategy" and "Strategic policy position statement on water" (http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside). The proposals cover flood and coastal erosion risk management, including a strategic overview role for the Environment Agency and provision for a new local authority leadership role in local flood risk management. Other policies cover main river mapping, co-operation and sharing of information, sustainable drainage systems, Regional Flood Defence Committees, implementation of the EU Floods Directive and the Water Framework Directive, reservoir safety, surface water management plans and hosepipe bans. Two major independent reviews are also awaited: Martin Cave's review of competition and innovation in water markets and Anna Walker's review of charging and metering for household water and sewerage services. Their recommendations will have to be considered and could lead to further legislative proposals in this area.
Download or read book Future flood and water management legislation written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-12-22 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Government must act to tackle the twin challenges of protecting over five million properties from flooding and maintaining clean, reliable and affordable water supplies. The Committee is concerned that the Government has cut flood defence funding and will in future require communities to pay a greater contribution towards the defences from which they benefit. At a time of budgetary constraint, the committee believes there is no certainty that this funding gap can be filled. The report tells Ministers they must: spell out how the Government will deliver its pledge to focus public money for flood defence on those communities at greatest risk and least able to protect themselves; ensure adequate and stable funding for local authorities and other agencies given new responsibilities under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to plan for and respond to flood events. The report calls on the Government to sharpen the regulatory framework for the water industry to ensure it places customers' views at the heart of a future strategy that will deliver improved affordability and water efficiency. Ministers should: clarify the role for social tariffs in helping those who have difficulty paying their water bills; implement a solution that brings down bills for customers in regions where water charges are at present disproportionately high due to the need for large-scale capital investment in sewage systems; publish a strategy to implement a wider programme of metering and variable tariffs designed to improve water efficiency while protecting those on low incomes from unaffordable price rises.
Download or read book Draft Water Bill written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2013-02 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Draft Water Bill sets out proposed new legislation, much of which would extend competition in the water industry. The MPs are concerned that the Draft Bill contains only a broad framework and leaves too much of the important detail to be decided by the regulator, Ofwat, or to be introduced through secondary legislation that receives less parliamentary scrutiny. In welcoming the opportunities for greater competition within the retail water sector (providing billing services) the MPs ask Government to get on with implementing changes that would reduce flooding - many of which were recommended nearly five years ago. The MPs highlight the importance of managing our water resources sustainably and efficiently. They recommend that encouraging sustainable development be elevated to a primary duty of the regulator and that the Government brings forward legislation to enable the abstraction regime to be reformed by 2022. In addition they recommend implementation of existing provisions on bad debt and encouraging greater use of water meters, both of which would lower customers' water bills. However, the report concludes that the Government needs to undertake further work before embarking on "upstream" competition, which would enable companies to compete in the supply of water.
Download or read book The work of committees in 2008 09 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Liaison Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-16 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: work of committees In 2008-09 : Second report of session 2009-10, report, together with formal minutes and Appendices
Download or read book Sustainable Surface Water Management written by Susanne M. Charlesworth and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable Surface Water Management: a handbook for SUDS addresses issues as diverse as flooding, water quality, amenity and biodiversity but also mitigation of, and adaptation to, global climate change, human health benefits and reduction in energy use. Chapters are included to cover issues from around the world, but they also address particular designs associated with the implementation of SUDS in tropical areas, problems with retrofitting SUDS devices, SUDS modelling, water harvesting in drought-stricken countries using SUDS and the inclusion of SUDS in the climate change strategies of such cities as Tokyo, New York and Strasbourg.
Download or read book Ofwat price review 2009 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2009-07-22 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Committee calls on Defra to review Ofwat's entire remit so that the regulatory regime will keep pace with the changes set to follow from greater competition and the challenge posed by scarcer water resources. On the matter of surface water drainage, Ofwat should have intervened to ensure a more measured set price increases for this service were levied on sports clubs, churches and voluntary organisations by water companies in recent months. Ofwat and the Government should explore how the costs of highway drainage - currently born by water customers - could be shared with local taxpayers who benefit from the service. Uncertainties created by the Cave and Walker reviews (both of which reported during the current Price Review) along with changes to the regulatory regime proposed in the draft Flood and Water Management Bill may have hampered the ability of water companies to raise money on the capital markets in a manner likely to push up customer bills. Warning of water scarcity in the South and East of England, the Committee calls for the creation of a 'water efficiency obligation' to ensure the regulatory regime emphasises the need to preserve resources and to rewards customers who install efficiency measures. Other recommendations are made on the uneven regional impacts of investment in water infrastructure, the impacts of climate change, and the issue of transparency, from the price review process itself to how well Ofwat currently requires companies to demonstrate they undertake effective consultation with consumers during business planning.
Download or read book Adapting to climate change written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environmental Audit Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate projections show that Britain can expect wetter winters, drier summers and a higher likelihood of flash-floods, heat waves and droughts. Yet adaptation to climate change has been given only a fraction of the attention that has gone into reducing greenhouse gases. The Government must build awareness and support for the wide-ranging and urgent programme of action that is needed to protect people, property and prosperity and safeguard the natural environment. Adapting infrastructure and homes will be expensive. To maintain current levels of flood protection for homes, real terms spending on flood defences will need to increase from its current level of around £600 million per annum to around £1 billion in 2035. Estimates in 2009 suggest that by the end of the century around £7 billion may be needed to improve the Thames flood barrier and tidal defences. New homes being built now must be designed to cope with the inevitable changes in climate over the next 50 - 80 years. The Government must make adaptation and mitigation more central to the planning system. New developments should only be permitted if they are suited to future climates. Existing homes will also need to be adapted so that they are comfortable during hotter summers and better protected against the risk of flooding. The Government must help to kick start an integrated retro-fitting programme that covers adaptation, water efficiency and energy efficiency. Green infrastructure - such as water storage, greater tree cover and more open green spaces - must also be promoted.
Download or read book Shaping Urban Infrastructures written by Simon Guy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-06-25 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cities can only exist because of the highly developed systems which underlie them, ensuring that energy, clean water, etc. are moved efficiently from producer to user, and that waste is removed. The urgent need to make the way that these services are provided more environmentally, socially and economically sustainable means that these systems are in a state of transition; from centralized to decentralized energy; from passive to smart infrastructure; from toll-free to road pricing. Such transitions are widely studied in the context of the influence of service providers, users, and regulators. Until now, however, relatively little attention has been given to the growing role of intermediaries in these systems. These consist of institutions and organizations acting in-between production and consumption, for example; NGOs who develop green energy labelling schemes in collaboration with producers and regulators to guide the user; consultants who advise businesses on how to save resources; and travel agents who match users with providers. Such intermediaries are in a position to shape the direction that technological transitions take, and ultimately the sustainability of urban networks. This book presents the first authoritative collection of research and analysis of the intermediaries that underpin the transitions that are taking place within urban infrastructures, showing how intermediaries emerge, the role that they play in key sectors - including energy, water, waste and building - and what impact they have on the governance of urban socio-technical networks.
Download or read book Sessional returns written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-01-27 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On cover and title page: House, committees of the whole House, general committees and select committees
Download or read book Understanding Hydraulics written by Les Hamill and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-09-16 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering all the fundamental topics in hydraulics and hydrology, this textbook is an accessible, thorough and trusted introduction to the subject. The text builds confidence by encouraging readers to work through examples, try simple experiments and continually test their own understanding as the book progresses. This hands-on approach aims to show students just how interesting hydraulics and hydrology is, as well as providing an invaluable reference resource for practising engineers. There are numerous worked examples, self-test and revision questions to help students solve problems and avoid mistakes, and a question and answer feature to keep students thinking and engaging with the text. The text is essential reading for undergraduates from pre-degree through all undergraduate level courses and for practising engineers around the world. New to this Edition: - Updates on climate change, flood risk management, flood alleviation, design considerations when developing greenfield sites, and the design of storm water sewers - A new chapter on sustainable storm water management (referred to as sustainable drainage systems (SUDS) in the UK) including their advantages and disadvantages, the design of components such as permeable and porous pavements, swales, soakaways and detention ponds and flood routing through storage reservoirs.
Download or read book Waste strategy for England 2007 written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every year some 330 million tonnes of waste are produced in the UK. The direct costs of managing this waste-£2.5 billion annually for English household waste alone-are dwarfed by the costs of using new resources to replace discarded materials. The Government should, as a priority, set out a timetable with significantly raised targets for reducing the total amount of waste produced. The waste strategy focuses disproportionately on domestic waste, which contributes less than 10 per cent of all waste, while omitting firm targets for the commercial and industrial sectors which produce around a quarter of all waste. Defra must rectify this urgently. Funding cuts to services designed to help businesses manage their waste well are premature and should be re-evaluated and ways to extend such services to a wider range of organisations should be considered. Far too small a proportion of waste is re-used, recycled, composted or used to produce energy. Nearly half of all waste is still sent to landfill sites where it contributes to climate change, producing 3 per cent of the country's greenhouse gases and 40 per cent of its methane emissions. The Committee notes the so-called "Primark effect" which has led to large increases in the amount of clothing sent to landfill sites. Food waste is another significant component of waste sent to landfill sites and householders, food producers and retailers need to do more to reduce the amount of food discarded unnecessarily. Waste should only be used for energy recovery if it is not possible to re-use, recycle or compost it.
Download or read book What Is Land For written by Matt Lobley and published by Earthscan. This book was released on 2009-12 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent decades agricultural commodity surpluses in the developed world have contributed to a mantra of 'land surplus' in which set-aside, extensification, alternative land uses and 'wilding' have been key terms in debates over land. Quite suddenly all this has changed as a consequence of rapidly shifting commodity markets. Prices for cereals, oil seeds and other globally traded commodities have risen sharply. A contributor to this has been the shift to bioenergy cropping, fuelled by concerns over post-peak oil and climate change. Agricultural supply chain interests have embraced the 'new environmentalism' of climate change with enthusiasm, proudly proclaiming the readiness of the industry to produce both food and energy crops, and to do so with a neo-liberal confidence in markets to determine the balance between food and non-food crops in land use. But policy and politics have not necessarily caught up with these market and industry-led changes and some environmentalists are beginning to challenge the assumptions of the new 'productivism'. Is it necessarily the case, they ask, that agriculture's best contribution to tackling climate change is to grow bioenergy crops or invest in anaerobic-digesters or make land over for windfarms? Might not there be an equally important role in maximising the carbon sequestration or water-holding properties of biodiverse land? What is Land For? tackles these key cutting-edge issues of this new debate by setting out a baseline of evidence and ideas.
Download or read book Dairy Farmers of Britain written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-23 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The demise on 3 June 2009 of Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFB) resulted in substantial losses for its 1,813 farmer members. It also resulted in more than a thousand job losses. A market crash was avoided, thanks to the positive response of - among others - the receivers, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Welsh Assembly Government, and, in general the dairy industry itself. The Committee believes the way in which DFB pursued its vertical integration strategy was over-ambitious. No single factor caused the demise of the DFB although the purchase of Associated Cooperatives Creameries (ACC) for a total of £81 million in 2004 had lasting repercussions. They are satisfied that DFB did not fail because it was a co-operative. However, its failure draws attention to a number of ways in which UK dairy co-operatives could be strengthened. Defra should be offering advice and assistance and they are urged to set up a task force comprising the Financial Services Authority, members of the banking community and industry representatives to investigate ways to overcome constraints on capitalising agricultural co-operatives. Defra must also raise with the Treasury the need to ensure that farmers are not taxed on money that is only notionally paid out to them and actually retained by their co-operative. They also recommend that Defra produce a report examining governance and capital raising arrangements in successful co-operatives overseas. The collapse of DFB also draws attention to the urgent need to update insolvency legislation as it applies to co-operatives.
Download or read book The national forest written by Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2010-03-19 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Forest project was established in 1995 with the aim of creating a new English forest across a 200 square mile area, embracing parts of Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire. The National Forest's purpose is to increase woodland cover to a third of The National Forest area, whilst demonstrating sustainable, multi-purpose land use, including growing timber, providing leisure and tourism facilities and developing natural habitats. Key features of The National Forest are its linkage of previously isolated ancient woodlands and the establishment of new nature reserves, as well as the provision of a framework for farm diversification and the regeneration of former coalfields. It is delivering tangible environmental, economic and social benefits to an area of the Midlands - much of which was suffering economic and environmental decline - through planting trees to create new woods and forests. Its achievement is not so much in trebling the proportion of land with tree cover to 18 per cent, but that, in so doing, it has helped to regenerate the local economy, open up the Forest to greater public use and improve the natural environment. The success has been built on the commitment and skills of all the partner organisations, and The National Forest Company has played a crucial leadership role to enable the project to deliver effectively the multiple benefits of forestry. There needs to be a systematic approach to disseminating the company's experiences so that lessons learned can be exploited across England.
Download or read book Parliamentary Debates Hansard written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 936 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book HC 942 Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee Work of the Committee 2010 15 written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2015 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Parliamentary Debates Hansard written by Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 1248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
