Environmental Audits - Purpose and Method

Purpose

To look objectively at waterways from an environmental perspective in order to meet the SCA Access Committee's aim of working to preserve and restore wild rivers and the access of paddlers to them.

To establish the environmental credentials of paddlers we should progressively carry out environmental audits of all our river systems, starting with the most critical. An audit could be carried out by a river adviser or other volunteer, (the "auditor") to an agreed format, focussing on four key areas:

1. Water Quality
2. The River Channel
3. River and Loch Banks
4. Drainage Basin Issues

The "Benchmark" Concept
The aim is to evaluate the condition of a given river system, measured against the ideal of a naturally flowing wild river. In other words, to what extent has a river system been modified, polluted or threatened and how far has this affected its flow regime, ecology and aesthetics.

The Process of the Audit
Preparations and preliminaries Recording would best be done in the following ways:

a) Annotation on a copy of an Ordnance Survey map, using codes.
b) Photographs and supporting notes
c) Video pictures and supporting notes

The importance of photos and/or video is that it would truly allow comparisons to be made in the future when the river is audited again, making it easy to identify improvements or deterioration. Illustrations also mean that the audit reports will make a much more visual impact when they are displayed, brought out in the support of a particular issue, or published in the press. The aim should be to store photographs digitally, either by taking digital originals or scanning photos onto disk. Ideally an entire audit, once produced would be stored on CD.

When carrying out an audit, an auditor will be able to claim out of pocket expenses for map, copying, film, video tape and any developing costs, plus reasonable travelling expenses if need be, from the Access Committee, who will authorise and/or request the carrying out of the audit.

Practical Auditing
The auditor will record the flow or gauge level at the time of the audit. Some care is required selecting an appropriate level. Low water is more likely to give a better view of channel obstructions etc

The auditor will walk and/or paddle the river system (or part thereof) taking careful note of the following:

Reporting
Written, photographic, video and mapped information should be put into a coherent report, including points for discussion or recommendations based on the audit findings, by the auditor.

The river should be classified in terms of categories 1, 2 and 3, using the scores above added together to give one of the following ratings. i.e.

Total score of 3 = Environmentally sound river system
Total score of 4-6 = Mildly degraded river system
Total score of 7-9 = Moderately degraded river system
Total score 10+ = Highly degraded river system

The audit once completed, including supporting photographs (with digital copies available) will be filed by the access committee and published under its name and where concerns arise the access committee will notify relevant bodies of these concerns, including copies of the report e.g. SEPA, local and national government departments, other conservation bodies etc. An audit may be published in the canoeing press to raise awareness amongst paddlers that the Association is monitoring rivers in this way.

The access committee will recommend a timescale for a revision of the audit (shorter for river systems where threats are current and ongoing).

By doing this type of work we will be educating ourselves and others as to the health or otherwise of our waterways and we will be taking the initiative by being knowledgable about the detrimental works that have and are being carried out by land owners, land users and private and public companies and for which they are rarely called to account.

3rd draft produced on 28th March by Chris Dickinson.

Footnotes

Pete Gwatkin is doing an audit of the River Findhorn

Next 1. Water Quality