Nearly 9,500 people die each year in London because of air pollution

Adam Vaughn in the Guardian (UK): Nearly 9,500 people die early each year in London due to long-term exposure to air pollution, more than twice as many as previously thought, according to new research. The premature deaths are due to two key pollutants, fine particulates known as PM2.5s and the toxic gas nitrogen dioxide (NO2), according to a study carried out by researchers at King’s College London.

The study – which was commissioned by the Greater London Authority and Transport for London – is believed to be the first by any city in the world to attempt to quantify how many people are being harmed by NO2. The gas is largely created by diesel cars, lorries and buses, and affects lung capacity and growth.

London, Birmingham, and Leeds are among the UK cities that have been in breach of EU safety limits on NO2 for five years, prompting legal action that led to a supreme court ruling in April that the government must publish a clean-up plan by the end of the year.

Previous research attributed 4,267 annual premature deaths to PM2.5s in 2008, based on 2006 levels of the particulates. Subsequent falls in those particulates and a change in methodology that excludes natural sources of the pollutant sees that figure fall to 3,537 for 2010 levels of PM2.5s in the new study. However that fall is more t
han cancelled out by the addition of an estimated 5,879 deaths from NO2 each year, bringing the total early deaths from both pollutants in 2010 to 9,416....

London view from St. Paul's, shot by Ian Buchanan, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Aggressive plant fungus threatens wheat production

Seed Daily via SPX: The spread of exotic and aggressive strains of a plant fungus is presenting a serious threat to wheat production in the UK, according to research published in Genome Biology. The research uses a new surveillance technique that could be applied internationally to respond to the spread of a wide variety of plant diseases.

Wheat is a critical staple and provides 20% of the calories and over 25% of the protein consumed by humans. 'Yellow rust' caused by the fungus Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici (PST) is one of the plant's major diseases and is widespread across the major wheat-producing areas of the world.

Infections lead to significant reductions in both grain quality and yield, with some rare events leading to the loss of an entire crop. New fungus strains have recently emerged that adapt to warmer temperatures, are more aggressive and have overcome many of the major defensive genes in wheat.

Lead author Diane Saunders of the John Innes Centre and The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC), UK, said: "Increased virulence, globalization, and climate change, are all increasing the scale and frequency of emerging plant diseases, and threatening global food security....

Trial plots of winter wheat that are being evaluated for their response to fungicide applications for controlling wheat diseases such as brown rust, yellow rust, eyespot and septoria. Shot by , Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

MPs to investigate TTIP trade deal's impact on European environmental protections

Damian Carrington in the Guardian (UK): The impact of the controversial Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) trade deal on environmental protections in Europe is to be investigated by the UK parliament. MPs are to examine if the agreement could weaken regulations on chemical and pesticide use, oil and gas extraction and genetically modified food.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a planned free trade agreement between the European Union and the US, which its backers say will boost both economies. But critics fear it will weaken regulations and place the interests of companies above those of citizens, with 1.25 million people signing a petition against TTIP. The ongoing negotiations have been criticised for their secrecy, prompting the European Commission to release a slew of documents on Wednesday, including some negotiating texts.

“Greater transatlantic trade and investment could be beneficial for Britain, but we must monitor these talks carefully to ensure they are not trading-in the rules that keep our food and environment safe,” said Joan Walley MP, chair of the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), which launched its inquiry on Friday. “We will be investigating whether it really is possible to sign such a deal and at the same time safeguard European environmental standards, as negotiators have claimed.”

A recent report from the Center for International Environmental Law (Ciel) argues that the European chemical industry wants the US system of chemical risk assessment to be adopted, which the group says would allow the use of over 80 pesticides currently banned in the EU. Other campaigners say US biotech companies want to use TTIP to open EU borders to imports of genetically modified food.

...Trevor Hutchings, at WWF UK, said the US-EU trading relationship is the largest in the world and as a result places significant pressure on the environment. TTIP should improve, not reduce, environmental protection, he said: “Unfortunately a number of TTIP provisions have the potential to undermine existing environmental standards.”...

A view of a German chemical plant, shot by Eugen Nosko - Deutsche Fotothek, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Germany license

Fishing quotas defy scientists’ advice

Fiona Harvey in the Guardian (UK): Britain’s fishermen will be allowed to increase their catch of cod and other key fish species next year after late-night wrangling between EU ministers in Brussels resulted in a new set of fishing quotas that flout scientific advice. The quota for cod catches for 2015 will increase by 5% on last year, though scientific advice suggested that it should be cut by 20%.

The UK’s fisheries minister, George Eustice, hailed the deal as a triumph for Britain’s dwi
ndling fishing fleets. He said: “Although these were difficult negotiations, I am pleased that we were able to secure the best possible deal to ensure sustainable fisheries and a strong UK fishing industry. While fishermen had feared there would be major cuts, we were able to keep the same quota as last year for many species, in addition to important increases to the North Sea cod and haddock quota, which will benefit Scottish fishermen.”

UK fishermen will also be allowed to catch 15% more prawns than last year and 15% more plaice in the North Sea, while the haddock catch has been increased by 6%. But in the Celtic Sea, fewer cod and haddock will be allowed to be caught – though the number is still more than scientists advised – and the number of sole to be caught in the Bristol and Eastern channels has been reduced.

Conservationists said the deal, reached after a day and a half of negotiations in Brussels, was not in line with what scientists had advised. After nearly four years of tense negotiations, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy was finally reformed this year. In its new state, it is supposed to guarantee that fish stocks are managed at what scientists deem to be sustainable levels, known as the maximum sustainable yield.

Andrew Clayton, of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which advocates a sustainable fisheries policy, said: “After decades of failing to get to grips with overfishing, the new common fisheries policy was supposed to bind ministers to setting sustainable fishing limits this year. Instead, they have set a considerable number of [quotas] in excess of the level scientists advised, failing to meet the targets they set themselves for overfishing. These are weak decisions, jeopardising the livelihoods of fishermen and the sustainability of stocks.”...

A fishing trawler in front of the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, shot by Darren Rosson Darren Rosson, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons 2.0 Generic license

Superbugs could kill 10 million people a year

CBS News: Warnings about the dangers of antibiotic-resistant "superbugs" are taking on new urgency with the release of a frightening new report from the British government. The report says higher rates of drug-resistant bacterial infections could result in 10 million deaths a year by 2050. The report puts the financial toll at a potential $100 trillion.

"That's a tremendous impact," CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus told "CBS This Morning." And the problem is not just hypothetical. "It's a real threat today. It's going to be a bigger threat," he said.

Superbugs such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, commonly called MRSA, are currently blamed for about 23,000 deaths a year in the United States. Earlier this year, the World Health Organization warned that antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria have now spread worldwide and could lead to a "post-antibiotic era in which common infections and minor injuries...can once again kill." The WHO report called the problem "so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine."

The risk has grown in recent years as the overuse of common antibiotics encouraged growth of drug-resistant strains. "Every time somebody has a fever, a doctor can give them an antibiotic. We have to stop that," Agus said. Antibiotics don't work against viral infections like a cold or the flu, but patients often ask for the drugs anyway, and too often doctors comply...

Colorized transmission electron micrograph showing USA 300 strain of Staphlococcus aureus, shown in gold, outside a white blood cell, shown in blue. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). From the National Institutes of Health

UK flooding: 'We must learn to live with water'

Brad Allen in the edie.net newsroom: The ever-increasing threat of flooding cannot be fully defended, so the UK must adopt a new approach where we learn to 'live with water', argues a new white paper from built environment science centre BRE.

BRE welcomed the Treasury's £2.3 billion investment in flood defences, but says that a new approach to dealing with flooding is required whereby buildings are made flood-resilient. Scroll down for full report.

BRE argues that flooding is inevitable as climate change and urbanisation have put more than 5.2 million homes in England at risk of flooding. Annual costs of flood damage are currently at least £1.1 billion and are expected to rise in coming years.

Across Europe, flooding has been traditionally managed by large-scale engineering solutions protecting conurbations from obvious risks such as rivers and the sea. However floods are now occurring within these defences requiring buildings to be adapted appropriately

BRE Centre for Resilience director Dr Stephen Garvin said: "Our urban environment continues to grow apace - surface water management needs to be embedded in the new developments we construct with things like sustainable urban drainage systems, green roofs to decrease water run off as well as localised flood resilient technologies."…

Photo of 2007 flood in Oxford by John Barker John Barker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Britain left 'exposed' to more floods and heatwaves

Ian Johnston in the Independent (UK): The UK is dangerously "exposed" to increasingly extreme weather brought about by climate change, a leading adviser to the Government has warned.

Professor Lord Krebs, who chairs an expert group of the independent Committee on Climate Change (CCC), said thousands of lives could be lost in searing heatwaves, and a lack of spending on flood defences would lead to "unnecessary flood damage" unless action was taken. He called on Britain and other countries to do more to cut greenhouse-gas emissions, saying global warming could have "profound implications" even for wealthy countries such as the UK.

In an article for The Independent on Sunday, on our website, Lord Krebs applauded some steps of recent years, noting that 1.4 million homes were protected, and no one died, in last winter's floods. "And yet," he said, "the UK is still exposed in key areas."

The National Audit Office and the CCC's Adaptation Sub-Committee, which he chairs, have concluded "not enough money is being spent on flood prevention". Lord Krebs said: "As a result, unnecessary flood damage will occur... The current approach in England is to 'build and protect'; to allow development on the floodplain as long as there are flood defences in place," he said. "This simply stores up costs and risks for the future. Indeed, such development is encouraged."...

The English countryside near Cold Moor, shot by Scott Rimmer, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

EU court rules UK government must clean up dangerous air pollution

John Vidal in the Guardian (UK): The government will be forced to urgently clean up illegal air pollution in British cities following a ruling on Wednesday in the European court of justice. It is likely to see many diesel cars and heavy goods vehicles restricted from city centres within a few years.

The landmark case, brought by a small environmental group through the UK courts, will allow people to sue the government for breaching EU pollution laws and will force ministers to prepare plans for many cities to improve air quality.

The court firmly rejected Britain’s long-standing approach to complying with EU air pollution laws which has been to appeal to Europe for time extensions. The government has admitted that under current plans, several cities in the UK will not meet its legal limits for the toxic nitrogen dioxide gas (NO2) until after 2030. This is 20 years after the original deadline set by Europe.

Instead, UK courts will now be able to order the government to produce a plan which achieves NO2 limits in a period of time as “short as possible”. The UK Supreme court is expected to interpret what the time frame should be next year.

“Thousands of people die because of air pollution in Britain every year. This ruling will save lives by forcing the government to finally take this issue seriously. They will now have to come up with an urgent plan to rid our towns and cities of cancer-causing diesel fumes,” said Alan Andrews, lawyer with Client Earth which brought the case.

“This sets a groundbreaking legal precedent in EU law and paves the way for a series of legal challenges across Europe,” he said....

London smog from St. Paul's, shot by Iain Buchanan, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Get ready for hotter summers and more flooding in the UK

Roz Pidcock in the Carbon Brief: Weather-wise, the UK saw it all last year. The coldest spring for 50 years, a sweltering summer heat wave and the wettest winter since records began. Today, a new report examines whether climate change is upping the odds of these events occurring.

The collection of papers, published in a bumper edition of journal Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, looks at 16 weather events that took place last year across the world. From Colorado to Korea, the scientists examine heatwaves, droughts, heavy rain and storms.

Globally, there is evidence for changes in some types of extreme weather, and evidence for a human fingerprint in those changes. But different types of event are affected differently. Climate change is greatly increasing the odds of heatwaves worldwide, today's report concludes. For storms, rainfall and drought the picture is less clear, however. Big differences between regions, natural variability in the climate and limited data make detecting changes over time far more difficult.

The science of disentangling human and natural influences on our climate is known as attribution. Dr Peter Stott, head of the climate change detection and attribution team at the Met Office and an editor on the report, explained more in a recent guest blog  for us: "[The aim is] to compare what actually happened with what might have happened in a world without anthropogenic climate change."

Understanding how our activities are changing the risk of some types of extremes is important for making decisions about how we can prepare for the future.,,,

Beach volleyball at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, shot by cdephotos - DSC02805, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Abandoned landfills polluting UK rivers

Alex Peel in the Guardian (UK) via the Natural Environment Research Council: Abandoned landfill sites throughout the UK routinely leach polluting chemicals into rivers, say scientists. At Port Meadow, on the outskirts of Oxford, about 27.5 tonnes of ammonium a year find way from landfill into the River Thames. The researchers say it could be happening at thousands of sites around the UK.

In water, ammonium breaks down into nitrogen. The extra nitrogen can trigger excessive plant growth and decay, damaging water quality and starving fish and other aquatic organisms of the oxygen they need to survive.

Scientists are most worried about so-called blue-green algal blooms, which can produce toxins capable of killing wild animals, livestock and domestic pets. In people, they can cause skin rashes, nausea, stomach pains, headaches and fever.

“We’ve been getting rid of waste for an awful long time,” says Dr Daren Gooddy, of NERC’s British Geological Survey, who led the study. “Since Victorian times, we’ve been putting it into landfill and ad-hoc waste dumps on the edge of our towns and cities, often on the fringes of floodplains.”

‘There are 11 landfill sites at Port Meadow alone. If you scale that up for the whole of the UK, then you’re probably talking about thousands of them.’...

A Port Meadow sunset, shot by OxOx, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

UK’s winter floods strengthen belief humans causing climate change – poll

Guardian (UK) via Press Association: More than a quarter of people say UK’s winter floods strengthened their belief in human-induced climate change, a survey has found. Half the people polled for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said widespread flooding in early 2014 made them more convinced the climate was changing, and 27% said the floods had also increased their belief humans were the main cause.

But the polling by ComRes of 2,021 people also revealed misconceptions about climate science, despite a majority of people claiming to be very or fairly well informed on climate change. Only one in nine people (11%) said that almost all climate scientists believe that human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, are mainly responsible for rising temperatures.

More than two-fifths (43%) think that a majority of climate scientists believe in human-induced climate change, but 35% think experts are split half and half, and 11% believe either a minority or almost none of the scientific community accept the theory. The finding, which is contradicted by studies showing
more than 90% of climate scientists believe humans are the main cause of global warming, has “uncomfortable echoes” of the MMR controversy 15 years ago, the ECIU said.

...There are also misconceptions on how popular clean energy is in the UK. Most people do not realise how high the support for renewable power sources such as wind farms and solar panels is, with just 5% estimating support from the British public as between 75% and 100%, and two-thirds thinking it is below 50%. Research for the government earlier this year found support for renewables was at 80%....

Flooding near Arundel Castle in February 2014, shot by hehaden, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

UK summer on track to become one of hottest in a century

Peter Walker in the Guardian (UK): There may be showers and slightly cooler weather due across much of the UK this weekend, but even that should not dampen the hopes of those wondering if the recent warm weather makes this summer one of the hottest on record.

Official figures show summer 2014 is unlikely to reach anywhere close to the exceptionally warm conditions of 1976, 2003 or 2006. Nevertheless, the data shows this year is already ranking amongst the warmest summers of the last century while the past month ranks as the eighth warmest July in Britain's national records, equal with 1933.

According to Met Office data in both June and July the mean UK temperature was 1.3C (2.34F) above average. This placed July as the joint eighth-warmest since equivalent records were first collected in 1910, with a day-and-night UK average of 16.3C (61F).

There were 228 hours of sunshine, 133% of the usual average for the month, making the Commonwealth Games summer the 10th sunniest on record, albeit some way from the 256 hours seen in 1955. It was the sixth sunniest July in records from 1929, while the sunniest day was in Glasgow on 9th.

However decent the overall picture, said Mark Wilson of the Met Office, the summer arguably felt all the better for coming after a series of significantly damper ones, notably 2012, the wettest for a century....

An aerial view of the Royal Crescent in Bath, shot by Arpingstone, public domain

Winter floods could batter England again if cuts not reversed, MPs warn

Damian Carrington in the Guardian (UK): The devastating floods of last winter could hit England again unless government funding cuts to flood defence budgets are reversed, MPs warned environment secretary, Owen Paterson, on Tuesday.

“Overall funding does not reflect the increased flood risk” being driven by climate change, the MPs' report found, while money for the maintenance of rivers and flood defences was at the “bare minimum”. The coalition imposed a 25% cut on flood defence spending on entering office in 2010.

MPs praised the government's “money is no object” relief efforts led by David Cameron, but said cost-cutting on defences was a false economy, leading to the misery of flooding and millions being spent on emergency action, rather than investment in flood prevention. The Environment Agency (EA) estimates every £1 invested in flood defences saves £8 in future damage.

“Ministers must take action now to avoid a repeat of the devastation caused by the winter floods,” said Anne McIntosh, Conservative MP and chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) select committee that produced the report.

“It is essential we get the funding in place. We have repeatedly called on the government to increase revenue funding so that necessary dredging and watercourse maintenance can be carried out to minimise flood risk, yet funding for maintenance remains at a bare minimum.”...

The Greylake Sluice Gates in the Somerset Levels, shot by Barbara Cook , Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license

Britain’s urban rivers cleanest in 20 years

A press release from Cardiff University: University scientists have concluded that Britain’s urban rivers are the cleanest they’ve been in over two decades. The 21-year study of over 2300 rivers measured the presence of clean-river invertebrates - a yardstick for river health – which during the days of heavy industry and poor sewage treatment had declined considerably, but now appear to be making a comeback.

Although climate change has warmed British rivers by around 1-2 degrees over recent decades, the findings suggest that improved pollution control has managed to offset its damaging effects on river ecosystems.

This indicates that society can prevent some undesirable climate change effects on the environment by improving habitat quality.

Dr Ian Vaughan and Professor Steve Ormerod from the School of Biosciences analysed changes in the occurrence and spread of insects, snails and other mini-beasts from major rivers between 1991 and 2011. The researchers then asked whether water quality, temperature or river flow best explained the biological changes they observed.

Among 78 types of organisms examined, 40 have become more prevalent in English and Welsh rivers while 19 have declined.  Overwhelmingly, these trends were explained by reductions in gross pollution rather than warming or changing flow caused by climate change.

Improving water quality has allowed some clean-water organisms from upland rivers to return to previously polluted lowland rivers, and may even explain some northwards movement previously attributed to climate-change....    

The researchers believe these results to be very encouraging in showing how reductions in pollution can help offset climate change impacts....

Canal Street in Manchester, shot by Ian Roberts, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons license 2.0 

UK summer flash floods to become more frequent

Fiona Harvey in the Guardian (UK): Flash flooding in summer is likely to become much more frequent across the UK as a result of climate change, with potentially devastating results in vulnerable areas, according to new research.

The study, published in the peer-review journal Nature Climate Change, is the first to draw a direct link between climate change and an increase in summer downpours.

The research, a result of a collaboration between the Met Office and Newcastle University, used climate change computer models and standard weather prediction models of the type used for short-term weather forecasts. It found that summers would be drier overall, but punctuated by more extreme downpours.

These can have a much worse effect than the steady rainfall typical of winter, because the dry land is less capable of absorbing water, and when too much falls in a short period it runs off, causing flash floods of the type that struck Boscastle in 2004, one of the worst examples of sudden localised flooding in recent years.

Whether any given area is subject to flash flooding will depend heavily on its topography, such as the proximity of uplands and rivers, but vulnerable areas are likely to experience far more incidents than they did in the past....

A 2006 flood in the UK, shot by Hugh Venables, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Flood warnings issued for England

The Guardian (UK): Heavy rain across the east of England could cause flooding over the coming days, forecasters have warned.  The Met Office issued a yellow weather warning of rain for the region, predicting localised flooding that could cause disruption to travel.

The wet weather would persist until Wednesday night, the Met said, with up to 70mm (2.76in) of rain expected in worst-hit areas including parts of Lincolnshire, South Yorkshire and the Humber.  The Environment Agency (EA) warned of a flood risk in the east, mainly from surface water and low-lying rivers.

It said: "There may be some flooding of low-lying land and roads, some disruption to travel and possibly flooding to individual properties."  Meteo Group forecaster Gareth Harvey said: "An area of prolonged rain is moving up over the eastern region and it's not going to shift until Wednesday night.

"The rain is not exclusive to the east region but that's where the persistent and largest rainfall totals of between 50 and 70mm will be.  Pretty much the whole of Great Britain will see rain at some point over the next 48 hours.  This means there could be some localised flooding."....

A rainy day in London, 2005, shot by Sharon, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license 

Future heat waves pose risk for population of greater London

A press release from the University of Oxford: A study led by Oxford University has modelled the effects of future heat waves on people living in Greater London in 2050 and concludes that the risk of heat-related deaths could be significantly reduced if buildings were adapted properly for climate change.

The model, which takes into account future changes to urban land use and man-made heat emissions, estimates an additional 800 heat-related deaths per year by 2050. Researchers used projections on likely increases in temperatures carried out by the Met Office and Newcastle University, coupled with data on demographic changes from the Office of National Statistics, to calculate the likely health risks of future heat waves for the population of Greater London.

The research, published online by the journal Climatic Change, says that policy makers need to fo
cus on how to adapt buildings and cities for future climate change. It highlights London as particularly vulnerable, owing to the so-called ‘urban heat island’ effect, which sees cities become hotter than the surrounding areas due to high concentrations of people, buildings and activities.

The Oxford study calculates that if the likely temperature increase was lessened by 1-2°C through better ventilation, shading or other means of keeping buildings cooler, the number of heat-related deaths could be cut by between 32-69%. The study also suggests that current climate scenarios tend to underestimate the effects and risks of heat waves in urban areas because they don’t account for the additional effect of the urban heat island.

It is widely known that summer heat waves lead to rises in the number of deaths and hospital admissions from thermal exhaustion, and projections suggest that heat waves are likely to become more regular and intense in the future. During the 2003 heat wave, London experienced a rise in the number of deaths of between 650 and 1,000. Hospital admissions from other heat-related conditions such as heat exhaustion and respiratory disorders also rose....

A rooftop view of London, circa 1865

Invasive species 'hitchhiking' on water sports kit

A press release from the University of Leeds: Foreign species that are devastating water ecosystems could be “hitchhiking” around Britain on canoeists’ and anglers’ kit, according to a new study. Invaders like the killer shrimp, zebra mussel and American signal crayfish have already caused extensive environmental damage and millions of pounds of economic costs.

The new research, led by the University of Leeds and the Centre for Environment Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), found that the cleaning habits of anglers and canoeists could be a key part of the problem. The study, based on a survey of more than 1,500 water sports enthusiasts across the UK, found that 64% of anglers and 79% of canoeists used their equipment in more than one waterway in a fortnight.

A significant proportion of those people (12% of anglers and 50% of canoeists) said they did not clean or dry their kit before moving to the new waters. Dr Alison Dunn, Reader in Evolutionary Ecology in the University of Leeds’ Faculty of Biological Sciences, who led the Leeds group, said:  “This is really alarming because some of the most dangerous invasive species can easily survive in damp equipment.

...Co-author Dr Paul Stebbing of Cefas said: “The killer shrimp is not the only invader capable of ’hitchhiking’ into new ecosystems on water sports equipment. The signal crayfish, which has been laying waste to native white-clawed crayfish populations, persists between three and seven days. Some invasive viruses and diseases can survive well over a month.”

...The “Check, Clean, Dry” campaign asks water sports participants to:

• Check all gear and clothing for live organisms, particularly in areas that are hard to inspect. 
• Clean and wash all clothing, footwear and equipment properly. 
• Dry all equipment thoroughly as many species can live for many days in moist conditions....

Angling near Kesh, shot by Kenneth Allen, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Coastal homeowners in the UK should prepare for the worst as climate change brings worse weather

The Western Daily Press (UK): The Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has just reported on the future risks of climate change. Richard Bagwell looks at how the issue may affect coastal property owners Climate change modelling suggests we should expect more extreme weather events, including the devastating coastal flooding we have recently witnessed.

The Environment Agency states that more than 5.5 million, or one in six, properties are at risk of flooding across England and Wales. The latest UKCP09 climate change projections indicate rising sea levels, while increasingly severe and frequent rainstorms mean risk of floods will increase.

For coastal property of any description, flood defences will be increasingly important, as will plans for managed retreats that have been announced in some parts of the country. The legislative framework, including the Water Resources Act 1991, the Land Drainage Act 1991 and the Coastal Protection Act 1949, was updated by the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 and associated regulations.

The Flood and Water Management Act 2010 required the Environment Agency to "develop, maintain, apply and monitor a strategy for flood and coastal erosion risk management in England".

This strategy document describes what needs to be done by all organisations involved in flood and coastal erosion risk management, including councils, internal drainage boards, coastal protection authorities, water and sewerage companies, highways authorities, and the Environment Agency...

Watching the coast in Lyme Regis, shot by Wissekerke, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license 

Future-proof UK coastal areas against rising sea levels, says National Trust

The Guardian (UK) via Press Association: A clear national strategy is "urgently needed" to help future-proof coastal areas from rising sea levels and extreme weather, according to a report published by the National Trust on Friday. The trust, one of the UK's biggest coastal owners, says many of its sites have been "battered" by storms and "hit hard" by high tides this winter.

Birling Gap, part of the Seven Sisters chalk cliffs in East Sussex, experienced seven years of erosion this winter – leaving its cafe and shop teetering metres from the edge. Part of the footpath down to the golden sands of Rhossili on Gower, South Wales – recently voted the UK's best beach – has been washed away by storms.

The charity says it has been forced to "fast-track" decisions over how to adapt coastal areas in the months ahead, rather than years or decades.  Simon Pryor, natural environment director at the National Trust, called for the government to ensure strategies to future-proof the coastline are implemented.

"There is a natural inclination to want to defend the coastline with concrete, but our coastline is dynamic and the forces of nature that have forme
d it are part of its beauty," Pryor said. "Hard defences will always have their place, but the winter storms that hit many coastal places hard have provided a valuable reminder that they have a limited life.

"Where we can we need to give natural processes that have formed our coast the space to work, and create areas where the coastline can realign as the sea levels rise. Natural habitats such as sand-dunes and salt marshes can act as buffer zones that absorb the impact of storms and very high tides."...

The Seven Sisters chalk cliffs in East Sussex, pre-erosion, shot by StephenDawson, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license