River Basin Management Planning Area Advisory Groups

River Basin Planning - The Water Framework Directive and You.

Many people have already heard of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) – Europe’s new and ambitious legislation to protect the water environment. But what you may not know is how it will be implemented in Scotland and the opportunities you can have to be involved.

The WFD was translated into Scottish law as the Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act in 2003 and the new act requires the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to take the lead on preparing a River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) for most of Scotland. The RBMP has to be produced by December 2009 and it will set out the actions that need to be taken to ensure Scotland’s water complies with the requirements of the Directive.

But SEPA can’t do all the work alone – many of the actions will need to be undertaken by other people and organisations and so it’s important that as many people as possible are involved in preparing the RBMP to ensure it has the best chance of being effective. The plan will also contain a lot of local detail and so information will be needed from a wide range of people who will often have more in depth local knowledge.

To help ensure the right people are involved in the preparation of the RBMP, SEPA has established a series of Area Advisory Groups (AAGs) across Scotland. There are eight of these groups in the Scottish River Basin District area and two of them cover the Moray Firth area – the North East Scotland AAG and the North Highland AAG. The groups consist of representatives of the various responsible authorities already named by the Scottish Executive, key relevant industries as well as organisations that can help to deliver some of the actions.

The Moray Firth Partnership is represented on both the AAGs in this area so will have a significant input into the production of the RBMP. 

Each AAG has an associated Forum, which will be open to all. SEPA hopes that anyone with an interest in the water environment will become members of these Forums. They will meet at the key stages during the production of the RBMP and will be consulted on the main documents. In this way SEPA hopes to get as much input and feedback as possible from the wider public.

The Forums in the Moray Firth meet regularly and are co-ordinated by Rachel Harding-Hill in North Highland and Tamsin Morris in the North East.  If you are interested in taking part you can contact Rachel at the SEPA Dingwall office on 01349 860347 email: or Tamsin at the SEPA Aberdeen office on 01224 424620 email:

Click on the links below to obtain further information on the two Moray Firth AAGs, including detailed information on the specific area characteristics, pressures and impacts, details of member organisations, and agendas and minutes of the meetings.

North Highland AAG         North East Scotland AAG

If you’d like to know more about the background to WFD or the AAGs and their Forums, further information can be found at the links given below where you can download the latest versions of all policy related documents including the River Basin Planning Strategy for Scotland. 

Water Framework Directive - home

River Basin Management Planning

Area Advisory Groups