Applied Science Publishers, London. Parker, D. J. & Penning-Rowsell, E. c., 1981. Water Planning in Britain. George Allen & Unwin, London. Pearce, F., 1981.
Introduction - Rutland Water 1970-1981 D. M. Harper Department of Adult Education, Leicester University, England, and Hon. Secretary, Rutland Water Research Group
Preamble Rutland Water, or Empingham Reservoir as it was initially known, came into being officially in May 1970 when Royal Assent was granted to the private Welland and Nene (Empingham Reservoir) and Mid-N orthamptonshire Water Act. The end of the first stage in its existence came a decade later. By then, the completed reservoir had reached its top water level and the dam had been inspected; about half its design capacity was being used for water supply and it had received national acclaim for its recreational facilities and international status for its wildfowl popUlations. In April 1981 a conference was held at Leicester University to bring together the events of the past decade. The initiative for this conference came from the Rutland Water Research Group, set up in 1971 to coordinate research effort and exchange information amongst those with an active amateur or professional interest in the changes associated with the reservoir (Harper 1979). The Research Group joined with the Institution of Water Engineers and Scientists (Scientific Section) because of the great interest in the primary water supply function of the reservoir, and with the Adult Education Department of Leicester University, which organised the conference.
Rutland Water in its national and regional context Rutland Water is only ten years old, although plans for such a water supply scheme had been gestating for at least a decade longer. The project Hydrobiologia 88,1-5 (1982). 0018-8158/82/0881-0001/$01.00. Dr W. Junk Publishers, The Hague.
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itself spans the most interesting period in the history of water management in Britain, and probably of any country in the world (Okun 1977). Initial planning of future supplies for the N orthamptonshire area - where demand was predicted to increase rapidly from expansion of towns like Northampton with 'overspill' population from London and Birmingham - was the responsibility of the Mid-N orthamptonshire Water Board, one of the 250 or so independent water supply undertakings in Britain. In 1963 the Water Resources Act created 29 River Authorities in England and Wales, and gave them responsibilities for water resource development in their catchments in addition to those for land drainage, fisheries and pollution prevention held by their predecessor River Boards. Thus the Welland and Nene River Authority became involved with the planning and ultimately the promotion of this water resource development on a tributary of the river Welland. The area of supply of the new reservoir had widened to include neighbouring water supply undertakings, notably for Peterborough and Leicester, and it was promoted on this basis. In the four years following the Empingham Reservoir Act, Government proposals for the reorganisation of all aspects of water cycle management in England and Wales were refined and implemented as the 1973 Water Act. This created ten new Regional Water Authorities, charged with the management of water supply, sewage disposal, and the old river authority functions within their new catchment areas (Okun 1977; Parker & Penning-Rowsell 1981). The Anglian Water
2
NORTH SEA
KM
100
Fig. I. England and Wales, showing the boundaries of the Regional Water Authorities, and the position of the catchments of the Weiland and Nene rivers within the Anglian Water Authority area (dotted line).
Authority (Fig. 1) took over responsibility for Rutland Water in the advanced stages of reservoir construction. Six years later it occupies an important role in strategic planning of the water resources in the Anglian region, linking with reservoirs, groundwater resources and river transfers from Lincolnshire down to the outskirts of London (Fig. 2) (A. W.A. 1975). Rutland Water, like nearly all the major reservoirs of south-eastern England, is a pumped storage reservoir, the largest such scheme in Britain. Pumped storage reservoirs, situated close to the lower reaches of the major rivers from which their supply is taken, are the most practical means of surface water storage in the lowland southeast where demand is high, rainfall low and the supply from impounding reservoirs, groundwater or direct river abstraction insufficient. Thus, the total catchment of Rutland Water is many times larger than its natural catchment (Fig. 3), although the contribution of the natural catchment during the filling phase of the reservoir was greater than anticipated (Harper 1978) because of high rainfall during this period.
Fig. 2. The Anglian Water Authority showing the major components of the water resources network - reservoirs, groundwater resources, rivers and river transfer schemes. Lincolnshire is the county in the north of the region, Essex in the south adjacent to London.
Fig. 3. The catchments of the rivers Weiland and Nene, from which water is pumped into Rutland at intakes marked with an open circle. The relative sizes of natural and artificial catchment of Rutland Water can thus be compared. The towns which Rutland supplies are also shown.
3 The important features of Rutland Water It is obviously impossible for a conference which was multi-disciplinary in the widest sense of the word and which was held relatively early in the life of the new reservoir, to cover all its aspects. Nevertheless, those features of the reservoir which have given it national, or even international, recognition are recorded in this volume. The first feature of the reservoir is the controversy which it has generated. When the proposals for the scheme were first made public, considerable local opposition was aroused which was mainly directed at its size and location. The planning aspects of the decision-making process and the activities of the promoters and opposition are reviewed by Lawson (pp. 19-26). Local opposition declined following the Act's Royal Assent; the reasons for local acceptance of the reservoir lay primarily in the thorough consultation procedures adopted by the promoters, outlined by Knights (pp: 7-17) and the major efforts put into recreational and amenity planning outlined in the articles by Knights (pp. 7-17), Crowe (pp. 43-46) and Ford (pp. 47-50). The wider controversy existing a decade ago as to whether a reservoir of this size was justifiable in the national context is re-examined by Herrington (pp. 27-42). Recent events have shown that this controversy still exists (Pearce 1981; Bowyer 1981). The second feature ofthis reservoir is its detailed and successful provision for recreation. The foundations for this were laid during the parliamentary debates and ensuing consultations but given greater strength by the re-organisation of the water industry in 1974, which for the first time committed the new authorities to promote the recreational and amenity use of their water resources. The general provision for recreation is Qutlined by Knights (pp. 7-17) and explained more fully in Langford (1979), and landscaping and amenity provision is covered by Crowe (pp. 43-46) and Ford (pp. 47-50). The two major recreational activities requiring scientific management as the basis for their success - the trout fishery and the nature reserve - are dealt with by Moore (pp. 179-189) and Appleton (pp. 211-224): It has been observed (Parker & Penning-Rowsell 1981) that recreational planning and management is generally accorded a low status and funding within the Regional Water Authorities, with the
exception offisheries, for which separate legislation exists. The success of the planning and integration of all the recreational activities at Rutland Water and in particular the most sensitive - wildlife conservation - provides an excellent example for other water authorities, as well as for Anglian, in other aspects of the water cycle management. The third feature of the reservoir, but undoubtedly the most important, is its management for water supply. The scientific management of lowland reservoirs is costly and complex because of the high alkalinity and nutrient levels in the impounded water, and the resultant development of planktonic organisms. The Water Research Centre were brought in as consultants to the River Authority during the reservoir's planning and initial construction because of these problems, with the result that the reservoir has a very wide range of management options, summarised in Fig. 4. The uses of these options, the limnology of the reservoir during its first 5 years of water storage, and the operation of the treatment processes are reviewed over pp. 67-209. The management limnology of Rutland can be seen in a wider, regional context when compared with the treatment problems faced by other eutrophic reservoirs in the Anglian Water Authority (Greene & Hayes 1981).
The role ofresearch at Rutland Water An outstanding feature of the success of the recording of events at Rutland Water in its first ten years has been the co-operation of individuals and institutions with diverse interests, despite the small proportion of external funding. Of course, much of the work described here has been carried out by employees of the Water Authority as part of their duties, but reference is made by Appleton (pp. 211-224) and Evans (pp. 231-232) to the work of volunteers and much ofthe work carried out by the educational institutes has been internally funded. This has led to gaps in our knowledge of the reservoir; little is known for example about the aquatic plants of reservoir or nature reserve. The Research Group was considerably weakened by the sudden death of Dr. M. Pearson of Nottingham University who was interested in the tolerance of Phragmites australis to flooding and its colonisation of the new water's edge.
4
1
SECONDARY DRAW-OFF TOWER WITH SHAFTS AT
79, 75
AND
72
M
0,0.
LI MNOlOG I CAL
TOWER
TREATED SEWAGE EFFLUENT
AT
79, 7", 69
AND
55
M O,D,
PO! NT I NG I NTO SOUTH ARM KM
Fig. 4. The main features of Rutland Water of importance in its management limnology. The sewage effluent comes from the town of Oakham (population 6780), situated on the inflow stream to the north arm about I km from the reservoir.
With the exception of a few gaps, the basic groundwork of recording and interpreting changes has been completed and is contained within these pages. The archaeological work is mostly over (see article by Adams et al., pp. 57-66) and as the biological work shows (see articles by Ferguson and Harper, Harper and Ferguson, and Bullock et al., pp. 117-156), many of the changes have now settled down into more or less predictable seasonal patterns. Rutland Water will continue to be a focal point of interest because of its size and importance, and because of the wealth of background data 'gathered here. I hope that the members of the Research Group, and other workers, will now direct their enthusiasm and resourcefulness towards solving some of the many problems, both academic and applied, still associated with such an exciting research site.
Acknowledgements The editors wish to express their gratitude to members of the Rutland Water Research Group who presented papers at the conference which are reproduced here, although some who were involved in the early days of the Group have since left. Mr.
Alan Morton, now at Liverpool University, and Peter Nicholson, now the Nature Conservancy Council's Regional Officer for the South West, were instrumental in establishing the group; Barry Gooding when resource planner with the Weiland and Nene River Authority and Professor Dix, when head of the Institute of Planning Studies at Nottingham University, were valuable contributors to it. The managers of the River Authority and its successor, the Weiland and Nene River Division of A.W.A., particularly the present incumbent Mr. Peter Langford, provided invaluable support to the Group, encouragement for the contributions of their staff and assistance to research workers on site. The preparation and organisation of the conference was efficiently dealt with by Eileen Sunderland and Barbara Hackney of the Department of Adult Education at Leicester University, and by Andy Elphink and Debora Peckham of the scientific section of the Institution of Water Engineers and Scientists. The Chairmen of sessions - Ken Stroud, John Hellawell and R. I. Hall - together with the opening contributors, helped to produce a lively and stimulating conference. Frank Clark and Steven Brierley recorded the proceedings. Colin Harden, Trout Hatchery Manager, guided delegates around the facilities in his charge after the
5
conference, as did Frank Knights, David Ford and Tim Appleton. Finally, Mr. Wil Peters, Managing Editor, and Mr. Cliff Morgan, Desk Editor, of Dr. W. Junk Publishers, have my thanks for the speed and efficiency with which they solved all the problems and brought this volume to publication.
References Anglian Water Authority, 1975. Interim Review of the Long Term Water Plan. A.W.A., Huntingdon. Bowyer, G., 1981. Letter. New Scientist 92: 332.
Greene, L. A. & Hayes, C. R., 1981. The impact of eutrophication on water treatment and supplies in the Anglian Water Authority. J. lnst. Wat. Engrs Scientists 35: 421-436. Harper, D. M., 1979. The Rutland Water Research Committee Bull. Br. Eco!. Soc. 10: 37. Harper, D. M., 1978. The limnology of Rutland Water. Verh. into Verein. Limnol. 20: 1604-1611. Langford, P. R., 1979. Leisure and sports facilities at Rutland Water. J. Inst. Wat. Engrs Scientists 33: 117-134. Okun, D. A., 1977. Regionalization of Water Management. Applied Science Publishers, London. Parker, D. J. & Penning-Rowsell, E. c., 1981. Water Planning in Britain. George Allen & Unwin, London. Pearce, F., 1981. Water, water, everywhere. New Scientist 92: 90-93.
