asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether the system developed by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology to measure endocrine disruption from steroid oestrogens in rivers will be marketed overseas; and, if so, which organisation will be responsible for doing so. [HL5657]

The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is a wholly owned research centre of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), which is in turn funded by the DIUS. The CEH has developed a set of new modelling approaches that enables users to describe and predict the fate and behaviour of oestrogenic steroids in water bodies, and in particular their concentrations in rivers. Research into the application of the new methodology is still in progress and the modelling system is being tested and improved by the CEH and its spin-out partner Wallingford HydroSolutions.