Amending the hydrology standards for lakes

The environmental standards for lake levels were developed from work undertaken by SNIFFER project WFD48. A variation from the natural lake level regime has a number of ecological implications.These impacts include alterations to the underwater light climate and changes to the spatial distribution of erosion and deposition zones. The different sensitivities of lake types to such changes were explored in an expert workshop held as part of the WFD48 project and degrees of change in lake level likely to result in some ecological deterioration were put forward.