Find out more about our responsibilities in the marine industries sector.
The Environment Agency has a wide range of responsibilities to protect the environment in estuaries and in coastal waters of England and Wales. To read more about this visit our marine pages:
With increasing pressure for land space and increase innovation in marine technologies, the use of the marine environment and its resources is becoming more common. There are great opportunities for activities such as renewable energy generators to be placed in the marine environment to harness the power of the waves and tides helping us work towards a low carbon economy. Marine transport also plays an important role as can reduce transportation air miles and its impact on the environment. It is important that these activities are strategically and sensibly placed, their impact on the marine environment needs to be managed and mitigated where possible. Our role is to offer advice on the impact of these activities and to ensure that they do not impact on our roles and responsibilities, particularly our role as the competent authority for the Water Framework Directive.
Ports and Shipping
There are several major and many smaller ports around the coast of England and Wales. They are vital for the economy of our island nation as about 95% of goods consumed or produced in the UK come and go by sea, The UK's busiest ports are was Grimsby and Immingham which in 2006 handled about 64 million tonnes of goods. Smaller ports are also import for our economy as support industries such as fishing and tourism.
The Dee Conservancy is the harbour, navigation and local lighthouse authority for most of the Dee Estuary in North Wales.
Dredging
To keep ports and shipping routes open, it is sometimes necessary to dredge the sea bed. Dredging has direct and indirect environmental effects, the scale of which are linked to the size of the dredge and the environment which is being dredged.
Marine renewables
Producing more energy from renewable sources is central to the government's intentions to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 60% by 2050. The government has a short term target to generate by 2010 10% of electricity from renewable sources. There are many windfarms onshore, however to meet the target, it will be necessary to look to the marine environment for large arrays of offshore windfarms.
Recreational Boating
Many like to visit the coastal areas for recreational purposes and use harbours and marinas to access coastal waters.
