State of the South West's Environment 2006

The State of the Environment 2006 report is now available to download. It contains information on trends on a wide range of environmental issues in the region and gives a local, regional and national perspective. This report can either be downloaded by clicking on the links below or you can contact us for a paper copy.

Supporting data used to compile this report will shortly be available from this page.

Caution, the full report and some of the chapters are large, an indication of size & download time (based on a 56kb modem) is given under each heading.

Full report

Introduction

Atmosphere

Biodiversity

(7.18mb - 19 minutes)

(119kb - 17 secs)

(1.1mb - 2.44 mins)

(1.07mb - 2.40 mins)

Energy

Flooding

Inland waters

* Click here for a correction to the bathing waters section and an explantory note for drinking water

Land & land use

(851kb - 2 mins)

(579kb - 1.24 mins)

(932kb - 2.16 mins)

(1.36mb - 3.23 mins)

Marine environment

People & communities

Waste & pollution

References

(971kb - 2.22 mins)

(1.39mb - 3.28 mins)

(1.72mb - 4.17 mins)

(89kb - 13 secs)

State of the South West's environment 2006 summary presentation

You can now download a summary of the region's environment in 2006 as a powerpoint presentation. These slides reveal key facts about the chapters identified above as well as information on state of the environment reporting and other facilities available from the South West Observatory Environment module.

You are free to download this presentation and adapt it to you own needs.

Correction to the bathing waters local perspective

An error was made in stating that the bathing water at Dartmouth Castle & Sugary Cove was the only 1 out of 190 monitored bathing waters in the South West Region to fail the mandatory standards.

Please disregard this paragraph in the report, which should now read:

In 2005, the bathing water at Instow in Devon was the only 1 out of 190 monitored bathing waters in the South West Region to fail the mandatory standards. The number of single exceedences of the mandatory standards decreased from 13 in 2004 to 8 in 2005 (Environment Agency, 2005).

Explanatory note for the drinking water local perspective

New drinking water quality regulations came into force in 2004, which effectively reset the baseline for measuring drinking water quality. Comparing 2003 and 2004 compliance with drinking water standards is therefore difficult and may not be indicative of actual increases or decreases between the years.

See the letter from the Chief Inspector of Drinking Water to the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for further explanation.