The Water Environment (River Basin Management Planning: Further Provision) (Scotland) Regulations 2013

Environmental objectives: human activity or natural condition S

6.  Less stringent environmental objectives may be set under section 9(1)(a)(i) of the Act for a specific body of water instead of those required pursuant to regulation 3(1) when that body of water is so affected by human activity or its natural condition is such that the achievement of the environmental objectives required pursuant to regulation 3(1) would be infeasible or disproportionately expensive, and the following conditions are met—

(a) the environmental and socio-economic needs served by such human activity cannot be achieved by other means which are a significantly better environmental option not entailing disproportionate costs;

(b) where the specific body of water is a body of surface water, the highest ecological and chemical status possible is achieved, given impacts that could not reasonably have been avoided due to the nature of the human activity or pollution;

(c) where the specific body of water is a body of groundwater, the least possible changes to good groundwater status, given impacts that could not reasonably have been avoided due to the nature of the human activity or pollution;

(d) no further deterioration occurs in the status of the affected body of water; and

(e) the establishment of less stringent environmental objectives, and the reasons for it, are set out in the river basin management plan (or the next update of it) and those objectives are reviewed every 6 years.