Environmental Challenge for Engineers: United Kingdom View

Abstract

The National Rivers Authority (NRA) employs 8,000 people and anticipates spending £2 billion over the next four years protecting and improving the water environment in England and Wales. During this time the NRA will construct and maintain about £1 billion worth of flood defences as well as control discharges into the rivers and the sea and monitor the abstraction of water from rivers for people to drink and industry and farmers to use. The NRA protects fisheries, inland navigation channels, and recreation areas, and over the past four years has prosecuted 1,700 people and companies and obtained fines and costs of £4,000,000. The NRA is therefore both a regulator and a protector of the water environment as well as a major contributor to civil engineering works. It is in the enviable position of having a foot in both camps.