Scottish Water has appointed engineering design consultancy Atkins to its marine survey services framework.

The framework, which is worth up to £5 million and runs initially for two years with scope to be extended to eight, has been developed as part of Scottish Water’s efforts to address changes in legislation, including the Water Framework Directive. It has been designed to support water quality investigations across Scotland, including coastal, estuarial and inland waters - such as lochs - so that EU targets to protect, enhance and restore bodies of water by 2015 will be met.

Atkins will be involved in a range of contracts under the framework, from overseeing water quality studies to the building of hydrodynamic models to assess the impact of discharges from Scottish Water assets on bacterial and sedimentation levels in water bodies across the region.

“Scotland has a reputation for having a high quality water environment and Scottish Water’s marine survey services framework will be play a key role in maintaining this reputation,” said Ian Heijne, Director of Rivers and Coastal at Atkins.

“We are delighted to be appointed to this framework, which will give us opportunities to draw on our water quality and modelling expertise to manage and continue to improve water quality in Scotland. Atkins has a wealth of experience in water quality management across the UK and we have excellent knowledge of the issues specific to Scotland through our ongoing work with Marine Scotland.”