Environment Agency - Monitoring at shale-gas sites: developing environmental quality baselines

Tender description

This is an Environment Agency research project where the successful contractor will take existing monitoring data and use these to determine the baselines at two shale-gas sites. The contractor will not be required to undertake any monitoring but will use the data available from third parties (including BGS). These baselines will be used by the successful contractor to identify "indicator levels" or criteria above which any observed concentrations of a particular substance are not consistent with the initial baseline. The work will also provide evidence for when changes in monitored concentrations may simply be due to normal variation. The monitoring data will cover air, surface water and groundwater. If hydraulic fracturing takes place during the lifetime of the project, the successful contractor will compare monitoring data (obtained by others) during hydraulic fracturing with the baseline. The successful contractor will provide recommendations on the best practice methods for undertaking the collection and analysis of pre-operational, and later operational, monitoring data that can be applied at other shale-gas sites.