3198 Guidance on establishing a species and habitats baseline for the Environmental Damage/Liability Regulations 2009

Overview:

The European Environmental Liabilities Directive (ELD) was implemented into UK law by the UK government and regional assemblies in 2009. The ELD primarily seeks to discourage the causing of environmental damage by applying stringent, and potentially costly, remedial measures to address such damage.

Guidance on establishing a species and habitats baseline for the Environmental Damage/Liability Regulations 2009, developed by the Energy Institute’s Soil Waste and Groundwater Group, provides guidance on establishing a species and habitat baseline to assist sites to comply with the ELD.

The guidance is a practical handbook, enabling users to develop a species and habitats baseline, for areas on and around their facilities, helping to direct appropriate damage prevention efforts and to build reference information, against which any potential damage can be measured. While the guide is likely to be most useful to production and manufacturing sites, the principles and guidance are equally applicable to smaller sites with areas of interest being scaled accordingly.

If used over time, the guidance will enable a ‘living baseline’ to be established, where natural variations in key species and habitats local to the site will be better understood.

Many of the techniques described are relatively simple and low cost.  The baseline information can inform compliance requirements and provide some assurance, both to the operator and local communities, without which the impact of the site may be open to conjecture and false perception.

This publication will be of primary interest for site managers and operators and anyone with a responsibility to the environment.

Related title

Introductory guide to environmental damage