Finding out about rivers

Is there anything more inspiring than a river? When the low sun shatters on the water or a kingfisher flashes blue, straight past you? Here at the UK Rivers Network, we love rivers and we do our best to make sure our rivers stay the way we'd all like to see them. Whether you're into fishing, canoeing, kayaking, or just walking your dog along the river bank, we hope you love rivers too.

Part of our mission involves defending rivers against the things that threaten them. But it's just as important to help people learn about rivers and the things we can do to protect them. So welcome to our general page of river links—your starting point for finding out a bit more about rivers. You might like to know that there are lots more related links on our Water pollution and fishing pages.

River photo by Ian Britton, Freefoto.com.

Last updated: 22 February 2008.

Contents: what's on this page

• Start here
• Background information
• Cool stuff for schools
• Organizations and campaign groups
• UK community-based river groups
• Worldwide community-based river groups
• River restoration
• Fish and fishing
• Recreational water use
• Rivers of the world
• Around the UK
• Map and directory of UK rivers
• UK
• England
• Ireland
• Northern Ireland
• Scotland
• Wales
• Articles about rivers

Start here

Background information

The following regularly updated sections of the DMOZ/ODP web directory are good starting points for finding out about rivers and water issues:

• Science: Environment: Water Resources
• Science: Environment: Water Resources: Education
• Science: Environment: Water Resources: Rivers and Streams.
• Society: Issues: Environment: Water

Also try Yahoo! Society and Culture > Environment and Nature > Water Resources > Rivers and Streams

Cool stuff for schools

Here are some good introductory articles and websites on rivers -- they're ideal for school projects!

• Free Your River: A European educational project that aims to get schools involved in learning about rivers
• "Rivers" article from Encyclopedia.com
• "Rivers" article from Columbia Encyclopedia
• "Rivers" article from Wikipedia
• Rivers and coasts - a good introduction from the BBC, includes info about the water cycle
• BBC Bitesize: Rivers and water management - GCSE revision from the BBC.
• Freshwater rivers - an introduction from Environment Canada
• The world's largest rivers - a table of facts and figures
• Stream Biology Excellent introduction to the biology and ecology of streams. Includes plants and animals, how a river flows, habitats, food web, how biologists study streams, stream ecology, and other information. 
• About Rivers and Dams 
• The Natural Tendencies of Rivers - Introduction to rivers and streams by J. G. Imhof of Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. 
• USGS Watershed Education Resources on the Internet. Includes web links to a variety of watersheds and a list of useful water education links.
• Rivers: a good introduction to river pollution from The Wildlife Trusts.
• Streamscapes: A website based in Ireland that contains a database of river based educational projects from schools and other groups. In parnership with the Marine Institute of Ireland Streamscapes also provides information on rivers, aquatic ecology, and in particular salmonids.

Organizations and campaign groups

• US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Surf Your Watershed
• European Rivers Network 
• International Rivers Network 
• List of international water networks and NGOs from the Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA)
• River Ocean Research and Education (RORE)
• WWF European Freshwater Programme

UK community-based river groups

For our current list of UK groups, please take a look at our network page

Worldwide community-based river groups

You can find a really comprehensive list of US river groups on the International Rivers Network website.

• American Heritage Rivers-Homepage: US govt program to restore rivers.
• American River Watershed Group
• American Rivers: Non-profit organization protecting and restoring America's rivers. 
• The Arana Gulch Watershed Alliance
• Bring Back the Don River - Toronto
• Buffalo River Stewardship Foundation 
• Credit Valley Conservation: Credit River watershed, Ontario. 
• Des Plaines River Watershed Alliance Links 
• Friends of The River: State-wide river Californian conservation group. 
• Futafriends - Conservation Efforts in Southern Chile
• Georgia River Network
• Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC) Protecting, sustaining, and rehabilitating the Huron River system in Michigan. 
• Idaho Rivers United: Statewide, non-profit river conservation group in Idaho.
• Inland Rivers Network: Inland rivers, wetlands and groundwaters of the Murray-Darling Basin in southeast Australia. 
• International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR) Protecting and regenerating the Rhine. 
• Lake Eyre Basin Coordinating Group, Australia
• Living Lands and Waters
• Living Rivers
• MekongForum Mekong River Basin. 
• Minnesota River Basin Data Center
• Mississippi River Basin Alliance
• Niobrara Council: Manage the Niobrara Scenic River in north central Nebraska. 
• Ouachita River Foundation: Protection of Ouachita River in Louisiana and Arkansas. Includes information about the river, photographs, and history.
• People for Puget Sound: Citizens group based in Washington State
• Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy: Non-profit organization in Pennsylvania.
• Redwood-Cottonwood Rivers Control Area
• River Network
• River Watch Network
• Snowy River Alliance: Saving the Snowy River in NSW and Victoria, Australia.
• Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper: Protecting of the Chattahoochee River, its tributaries and watershed, in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.

River restoration

• European Centre for River Restoration (ECRR)
• River Restoration Centre UK; information, projects and promotion in the UK
• Manual of river restoration - from the RRC

Fish conservation

We've moved the links from this section to a much-expanded page exclusively about fishing.

Recreational water use

• The UK Waterways Web Ring: An excellent webring mainly for people interested in canals and navigable waterways.
• British Waterways
• The UK Rivers Guidebook: Mainly for people who like canoeing down rivers.

Rivers of the world

• Ganga (Ganges): India's River Ganges (Ganga).
• Thames: Floating Down the River: England's River Thames. 
• Rivers of the World: Their Beauty and Majesty Information about 16 of the world's major rivers: Congo, Mississippi, Columbia, Blackstone, Volga, Ganges, Pawtuxet, Connecticut, Colorado, Amazon, Missouri, Murray-Darling, Hudson, Nile, Euphrates, and Housatonic.

Around the UK

Map of UK rivers

Sorry, we are no longer aware of a website that shows a complete map of UK rivers. However, the Britannia website has a pretty good map of the major British rivers and even draws a picture of them for you!

Comprehensive list of UK rivers

We've long planned to create a comprehensive directory of UK rivers but, since we first set up our website, Wikipedia has appeared! There's now a Wikipedia page called List of rivers of the United Kingdom, which lists the 20 or so longest rivers. This page also links to pages that attempt to list all the rivers in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. By the nature of Wikipedia, this is a somewhat incomplete resource at the moment—but give it chance and it should build into an excellent guide to our rivers in the next few years. Do contribute information if you can:

• List of rivers of England
• List of rivers of Ireland for rivers in Northern Ireland
• List of rivers of Scotland
• List of rivers of Wales

UK

• Bathing Water in the European Union: Interactive atlas of European bathing water quality (based on the 1976 Bathing Water Directive). Compare the number (and quality) of designated inland waters in the UK with those in the rest of Europe.
• UK Department for Environment, Food, and Regional Affairs: Marine and fisheries pages.
• UK Drinking Water Inspectorate : a variety of useful information about drinking water, from technical reports to leaflets for householders
• Streamwatch UK: Streamwatch UK will allow primary and secondary school pupils and community groups to monitor water quality in their local environment, using test materials and equipment of Water Utility Company standard. This high quality information will be accessible to all interested parties through a central database. 
• BHS Chronology of British Hydrological Events: a database of floods and other events from the BHS.

England

• English Nature
• Environment Agency of England and Wales
• Water quality
• For more local information, see the long list of British river groups on our network page

Ireland

• Environmental Protection Agency Ireland
• EPA Ireland's national database of freshwater quality: Interactive maps and graphs show the quality of inland waters across Ireland.
• State of the Environment in Ireland - Inland Waters: Extracts from "State of the Environment in Ireland", 1996. Published by the Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland
• Biological and physico-chemical surveillance: The two types of assessment compared
• Streamscapes: A website based in Ireland that contains a database of river based educational projects from schools and other groups. In parnership with the Marine Institute of Ireland Streamscapes also provides information on rivers, aquatic ecology, and in particular salmonids.
• Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment (VOICE): Green NGO based in Dublin and campaigning on environmental issues (including river pollution) throughout Ireland.
• Fish Ireland.com
• Identify a river: Interactive game: can you name Ireland's main rivers? 
• See also the long list of British river groups on our network page.

Northern Ireland

• Department of the Environment, Northern Ireland
• Naturenet: The Environment & Heritage Agency for Northern Ireland
• Rivers Agency: Department of Agriculture and Rural Development
• The Northern Ireland Assembly
• Contaminated land.co.uk: Northern Ireland
• See also the long list of British river groups on our network page.

Scotland

• Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA)
• Scottish Bathing Water Quality from SEPA
• Friends of the Earth Scotland
• 23 November 2000: Scotland debates Salmon bill: A controversial bill to protect wild salmon is being debated by Scottish MSPs.
• 16 November 2000: Scottish Salmon industry appeals for help: Financial help sought to fight disease said to have cost the Scottish fishing industry £100 million.
  
• See also the long list of British river groups on our network page.

Wales

• Environment Agency of England and Wales
• Water quality
• Wales Wide Web Principal Rivers
• Millions announced for Welsh flood protection: Welsh Secretary announces extra £3 million for flood defences. (10 November 2000) 
• See also the long list of British river groups on our network page.

Articles about rivers

General

• New Internationalist: Special Issue No 273 about rivers and river activism: includes...
• Conversation with a maverick: an interview with Phil Williams, "the man in the forefront of the defense of the world’s river eco-systems".

Human water use issues

For more links about water and the world water crisis, take a look at our Water page.

• [E] Magazine Cover Story -- Water, Water Everywhere: Innovation and Cooperation are Helping Slake the World's Growing Thirst (Sep-Oct 1998)
• [E] Conversations -- Sandra Postel: The Coming Age of Water Scarcity (Sep-Oct 1998)

Dams

• Australia's legendary Snowy River to flow again, Planet Ark, October 2000.
• [E] Currents -- Damning Dams: Is One Of The Greatest Engineering Marvels (Jan-Feb 1999)
• [E] In Brief -- American Rivers: Damning the Dams (Jul-Aug 2000)
• [E] Updates (Sept-Oct 1999): How the Edwards Dam in Augusta, Maine, was breached to allow the passage of 10 species of migratory fish.
• The Yangtze's Collision Course - MSNBC news article (October 1 1999) describing the Yangtze dam plan

River pollution

Note that there are hundreds more pollution-related links on our Water pollution page.

• [E] Currents -- A River Runs Through It: The Grassroots Take on General Electric in the Battle To Clean Up the Hudson (Sep-Oct 2000)
• [E] In Brief -- Crying Rivers (May-Jun 2000): Cyanide pollution
• Death of a river: How the entire eco-system of Hungary's Tisza river was wiped out in the worst environmental disaster since Chernobyl. 
• Nepal's Sacred River Under Threat - The World Conservation Union in Nepal, South Asia, says the Bagmati river may be destroyed by pollution. (BBC News 21 July 1999).

Rivers and climate change

• US Oil Companies Polluting Our Rivers: This Friends of the Earth (FoE) UK press release (August 26 1988) suggests a link between reductions in river quality and global warming.

Habitats and species

• [E] Feature -- Paradise Lost: America's Disappearing Wetlands (Nov-Dec 1998)
• [E] Green Living Going Green -- Amazon Adventure: Ecotourism Lodges Are Saving a Brazilian River Basin (Mar-Apr 1999)

News stories

• Search Google news for river news stories
• Search Environment News Network for river stories