Lakes, Lochs and Loughs

But first of all, a few definitions, Penny.

What is a lake or a loch? Let's first of all actually just deal with the name, the linguistic side.

I gather either side of the border, but you can maybe help me out.

Well, you've got lakes, lochs and lochs, haven't you? They're all the same thing.

You've also missed out Llyn, which is the Welsh, and Llynnoeth, which is the group of lakes you might describe in Wales.

There's no fixed size for a lake.

So when we were doing our work to develop the lake classification scheme for what was then the National Rivers Authority became the Environment Agency, we were asked to define what a lake was.

And so we came up with an operational definition, which is one hectare.

And if you have one hectare, you've got around about 81,000 lakes in the whole of the UK, about 31,000 of them in Scotland.

So that means it's 100 metres by 100 metres or about two and a half acres?

Yes, about the equivalent of one and a third football pitches from the premiership.

So if it's bigger than that,

it counts as a lake in the classification that you came up

with.

But if you included all the pools and the moorland pools, the small ponds, you might have over 300,000 just in England and Wales alone.

And locally, they can be incredibly important to communities.

They're where kids go to play and fish and so on.

So it depends on how you define

the size.

Okay.

Why do they matter? I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because as Tom said at the start, you know, rivers get a lot of attention and the ocean gets more and more attention these days and lakes seem to be a bit forgotten.

So justify your lakes.

Why should we be here talking about lakes? Amy, let's start with you.

I guess in a large sense, because we're losing them.

Britain used to be a land that was wet.

But first of all, a few definitions, Penny.

What is a lake or a loch? Let's first of all actually just deal with the name, the linguistic side.

I gather either side of the border, but you can maybe help me out.

Well, you've got lakes, lochs and lochs, haven't you? They're all the same thing.

You've also missed out Llyn, which is the Welsh, and Llynnoeth, which is the group of lakes you might describe in Wales.

There's no fixed size for a lake.

So when we were doing our work to develop the lake classification scheme for what was then the National Rivers Authority became the Environment Agency, we were asked to define what a lake was.

And so we came up with an operational definition, which is one hectare.

And if you have one hectare, you've got around about 81,000 lakes in the whole of the UK, about 31,000 of them in Scotland.

So that means it's 100 metres by 100 metres or about two and a half acres?

Yes, about the equivalent of one and a third football pitches from the premiership.

So if it's bigger than that,

it counts as a lake in the classification that you came up

with.

But if you included all the pools and the moorland pools, the small ponds, you might have over 300,000 just in England and Wales alone.

And locally, they can be incredibly important to communities.

They're where kids go to play and fish and so on.

So it depends on how you define

the size.

Okay.

Why do they matter? I mean, it's funny, isn't it? Because as Tom said at the start, you know, rivers get a lot of attention and the ocean gets more and more attention these days and lakes seem to be a bit forgotten.

So justify your lakes.

Why should we be here talking about lakes? Amy, let's start with you.

I guess in a large sense, because we're losing them.

Britain used to be a land that was wet.