Bristol City (Local Environment Profile 2011)

• There is one Air Quality Management Area in Bristol
• Please click here for more information.

Source: DEFRA

• There are 5 river water bodies within Bristol classified as 20% poor, and 80% as moderate.
• The main reasons for less than good status include higher levels of nutrients e.g. ammonia, phosphate.
  

• For information on the activities taking place to help your local river improve, please see the Earth Chattering pages for an interactive map and much more information.

Please note - Water bodies do not fit exactly within local authority boundaries. The figures have been derived from those water bodies whose centres are within the district in question. If all water bodies within a district had been included, double accounting would have taken place. Some water bodies have yet to be classified. For the purpose of this exercise, these have been removed from the figures published.

Source: Environment Agency  

• Landuse during 2005 both the South West Region and the UK, the largest landuse came from Green Space with 90.7% and 87.5% respectively. The next largest area of land cover came in the form of domestic gardens with 3.1% in the South West, and 4.3% for the UK average.
• In Bristol, the two largest landuses are the same, however domestic gardens is significantly higher with 22.2% and green space is significantly lower with 34.4%.

• The ninth Local Environmental Quality Survey conducted by Keep Britain Tidy, was carried out between April 2009 and March 2010. The Summary Report key messages included :

~ Overall Standards within England remain the same as last year, with no change in the Cleansing Index score, which is 76, out of a possible 100.

~ 63% of standards for all LEQ indicators were either Good or Satisfactory.

~ The South East joins the South West as top performing region overall, for the first time this year.

~ The South West has been either the top performing region or joint top performing region since the 2007/08 Survey. 

• The survey carried out between April 2006 -March 2007, is available down to Local Authority Level, please click here for the details. 

Source : Keep Britain Tidy

• Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZs) are areas of land that drain into waters polluted by nitrates, such that the ecosystem is at risk of being disturbed, or the water is likely to exceed 50 milligrams of nitrate in each litre.

• Within Bristol City Council, there is a small area designated NVZ with no areas of deferred slurry storage.

• NVZ regulations come fully into force on 1 Jan 2012, except in deferred Slurry storage areas which have until 1 Jan 2013.
  
• For more information on NVZ, please see Environment Agency pages.
• For detailed maps relating to NVZ areas, please see source pages.

Source: Environment Agency

• Catchment Sensitive Farming (CSF) gives advice on dealing with diffuse pollution from agriculture and the impact on water courses.  CSF is a voluntary initiative, where as NVZs is a statutory obligation. CSF looks at: best practice on manure and pesticide usage; Promoting good soil structure; protecting watercourses from run-off and best practice on stock management.
• There are no Catchment Sensitive Farming projects within Bristol City.

Source: Environment Agency

• In a broad landscape context this area is made up of a diverse range of soil types. Many of these soils have been overbuilt as the city of Bristol developed.

• Since soil type is a major factor in determining the type of agriculture that can be supported, the medium textured soils support mixed farming with clay rich heavy soils underlying the rich pastureland for dairying while the light textured soils support largely arable and horticulture.

• The latest detailed (2007) DEFRA agricultural census data available for the city of Bristol reveals little since much of the DEFRA data is commercially suppressed due to the small sample size with the only farm types listed as lowland grazing.

Source : DEFRA

• For the period April 2005-March 2010 inc, there was 1 incident of major impact to water within Bristol City Council. In addition there was 1 incident of significant impact to air, 2 of significant impact to land, 1 incident of significant impact to land and water, and a further 6 incidents of significant impact to water.

• For the period April 2010- March 2011 inc, there were no incidents of major or significant impact to land, air or water in Bristol. 

Source : Environment Agency

• During 2009/10 there were 7112 reported incidents of flytipping in Bristol, the highest for a district or unitary authority in the region. This was a 29% increase from 5526 incidents in 2008/09. There were 28 prosecutions for flytipping, all of which had successful outcomes.

Please note: incidents of fly tipping are reported differently by each council. One may log black bin bags out on an incorrect day as a fly tipping incident where another council do not log this. Please be aware of these reporting discrepancies on Flycapture when looking at the data in comparison to other councils.

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  Bristol City Council was not in the top ten highest producers of residual waste produced however were in the top half of the league table in the South West, with  551.71 kg/household. This was the lowest to be produced in the West of England Counties.

• In 2009/10, South Hams had the lowest level of residual waste in the South West with 341.04kg/household. The highest in the South West was Isles of Scilly Council with 1,452kg/household. 

• Recycling and composting has increased significantly in the South West, from 14.9% in 2000 / 2001 to 43.5% in 2009 / 2010.

• Bristol City Council in 2009/10 against the other South West Councils, was in the bottom half of the recycling league table with 37.03%. 

• The highest rate of recycling in the SW was Cotswold District Council with 60.4%,  and the lowest rate in the SW was Isles of Scilly with 18.9%.

Source : DEFRA  

• Bristol City Council landfilled 102,465 tonnes, which was the seventh highest amount of tonnes landfilled in the South West. However, they were also the sixth highest percentage landfilled (58.17%) in the South West.

• Bournemouth Borough Council landfilled the least percentage waste in 2009/10 (37.8%). Plymouth City Council landfilled the largest percentage of waste in 2009/10 (64%).  Devon County Council however landfilled the largest amount in tonnes with 194,720 tonnes. 

Source: Environment Agency