Helping communities to help their rivers

The world's rivers have never been under so much stress. Even in the UK and Ireland, rivers are under huge pressure from water abstraction, pollution, and other human activities.

The UK Rivers Network brings people together to create a better future for rivers and inland waters in the UK and Ireland.

River picture by Ryan Hagerty courtesy of US Fish & Wildlife Service.

How this website works

It's really easy to get involved in helping your local river. Here are five simple things you can do:

What's new?

Photo: The River Frome, Dorset, in summer.

Here are some new things on our website and elsewhere...

• Flooding: What to do: The BBC offers a handy summary of official advice for people unlucky enough to be caught by flooding.
• River walks and cycle rides: We've got well over 100 river walks and cycle rides on our new page.
• Forthcoming river events: From pond dips and canal walks to litter picks and full-on river festivals, there are dozens of river-related events going on all over the country virtually all year round.
• Introduction to rivers: A simple new guide to the basic features of rivers from Explain that Stuff!

Don't forget these older pages:

• We're continuing to develop our educational pages. Most recently, we've collected together a page of climate change and global warming photos to add to our very popular pollution photos and river photos for students and researchers.
• Need to find out about water pollution? Check out our ever-popular Pollution page. Explain that Stuff! also have a good introductory article about water pollution.
• Want to get involved with local river conservation projects? Take a look at our ever-popular Network page. We've now (finally) got an interactive map of all the UK river groups we know about.

Latest world river and environment news from Google

Looking for our river news headlines?

All the latest UK river and environment news is now on our latest news page. Or, if you prefer, you can find it on our Facebook page.