UK inland water quality and pollution statistics

Last updated: 25 July 2010

River Fowey near Lanhydrock, Cornwall

Clean or dirty?

Over the last couple of decades, the British government's environment department (currently called Defra, but renamed every few years) and the Environment Agency have sometimes been a little disingenuous about inland and coastal water quality. Great progress has been made improving water quality and all credit to the people who've made this happen. But that doesn't mean rivers, beaches, and coastal waters are absolutely pristine, full of life, and always clean enough to swim, surf, or bathe in—and we shouldn't be giving that impression.

In September 2009, for example, the Environment Agency boldly announced: Quality of Rivers in England and Wales best for over a century. Elsewhere, the same day, the story was rather different: BBC News, for example, was telling us that Most rivers fail EU standards, while The Independent was asking Why are our rivers so dirty, and what can be done to make them cleaner?. Three views of exactly the same story! The explanation? European legislation had just raised the bar considerably and mediocre UK standards were no longer good enough.

That incident wasn't a one-off: government figures repeatedly paint a picture of ever-improving rivers and beaches while conservation organizations and environmental campaigners tell a different story. Here's another example. In November 1999, Surfers Against Sewage were telling us that UK Fails Bathing Water Standards Set 33 Years Ago, while the UK government preferred to spin exactly the same story as 98% of swimming spots meet water quality standards (where "water quality standards" is another way of saying "absolutely bare minimum mandatory standards").

The point is clear: you need to treat official statistics with caution and interpret them critically. To help you, we've been archiving stories and statistics about UK water quality on this page for over a decade.

Please note that a number of files linked from this page are in PDF format (indicated by this symbol ). Most modern computers will load PDFs automatically in a new window, but if your computer doesn't you'll need to download Adobe Reader (formerly called Adobe Acrobat).

Photo: The River Fowey, Cornwall.

Current official statistics

How clean or otherwise are Britain's rivers and inland waters? If you want the most up-to-date statistics for inland water quality in the UK, try the following pages:

e-Digest Statistics about: Inland Water Quality and Use from DEFRA.
Scottish Environmental Statistics Online: Inland Water Quality from The Scottish Government.

2009/2010

We haven't been able to find really detailed figures on river quality from Defra since 2007, when the way of measuring river quality was changed to reflect the new Water Framework Directive. The most up-to-date information is Defra's river quality statistics. Be warned: sweeping, national graphs give the impression that everything is just fine with our rivers and getting better and better by the day. It's our experience that graphs covering entire countries are a good way of masking problems in individual regions or with specific rivers, so treat them with the critical eye they deserve.

For a balanced view, read these unofficial news stories, reports, and related pages:

Tackling diffuse water pollution in England: A critical, July 2010 report by the National Audit Office concludes: "The Environment Agency's approach to tackling diffuse water pollution, such as run-off from agricultural land, has not, to date, proved value for money. The development of River Basin Management Plans now offers an opportunity to target work by the Agency and others to tackle this complex problem.".
Most rivers fail EU standards: Three quarters of English and Welsh rivers fail to meet the new EU standard of "good" quality. Only five of 6000 rivers are classified as pristine.
RSPB calls for action over "worrying" rivers: Just five of the 6,000 rivers in England and Wales remain in pristine condition, according to new figures published today, and RSPB is demanding action.
Why are our rivers so dirty, and what can be done to make them cleaner?: The Independent has a wonderfully clear and simple guide to the latest scandal over river quality, by Amol Rajan.
Rivers in the UK: Despite buoyant government figures, WWF report that "only 15% of the total length of our rivers are healthy enough to support a vibrant ecosystem".
200 polluted rivers in Northern Ireland: BBC News story from December 2008.

2006

The figures for 2005 were published in this Defra news release from 17 August 2006. It referred to the following charts, which showed broad (and generally very encouraging) trends for the whole country, but they also disguise a few other (worrying) trends in particular regions (notably Anglia).

We have also produced some of our own charts using DEFRA's data in e-Digest Statistics about: Inland Water Quality and Use.

English freshwater rivers and canals: chemical indicators of water quality by length 1993-2005. This shows a slight decline in good rivers and a worrying increase in bad and poor rivers over the last few years. See also the next chart.
English freshwater rivers and canals: bad and poor chemical water quality by length 1993-2005: The same chart as above with the good and fair categories removed. This shows more clearly the significant increase in the bad and poor categories between 2001 and 2004, which showed some reduction in 2005.
English freshwater rivers and canals: bad chemical water quality by length and region 2000-2005: This chart shows the chemical quality of the worst stretches of river in the country. It shows that most of our "bad" rivers are in the Midlands and the North. There's been some improvement in most regions in 2005, but the Anglian region continues to deteriorate.
English freshwater rivers and canals: poor chemical water quality by length and region 2000-2005: This chart shows the chemical quality of the second-worst ("poor") stretches of river in the country. It shows increases in poor quality, but some of these are due to decreases in bad river quality in the same regions (i.e. some previously "bad" rivers are now only classed as "poor").
English freshwater rivers and canals: bad biological water quality by length and region 2000-2004: This chart refers to the worst stretches of river in the country. It shows that most of our "bad" rivers are in the Midlands and the North. It also shows a worring increase in bad biological water quality in four out of seven regions over the last few years.
English freshwater rivers and canals: poor biological water quality by length and region 2000-2004: This shows that most of our "poor" rivers are in the Midlands and the North. It shows an alarming increase in poor rivers in the Midlands in recent years.
Welsh freshwater rivers and canals: chemical indicators of water quality by length 1993-2005.
Northern Ireland freshwater rivers: chemical indicators of water quality by length 1991-2005.

We don't, unfortunately, have comparable charts for Scotland and Ireland. Scotland measures its river quality in a different way and has used three different systems since 1990, so the data isn't comparable. However, you can find the numbers in e-Digest Statistics about: Inland Water Quality and Use and plot your own chart if you wish.

2005

This 15 August 2005 news release from DEFRA updated the picture from 2003.

2003

This 23 September 2003 news release from DEFRA updated the picture from 1999.

1999

The data in this section was compiled in 2001 using data to 1999. We have left it here for interest.

The UK's rivers are under increasing pressure:

"Only 15 per cent of the UK's 150,000 miles of freshwater channels remain in a "natural condition"... with the remainder dredged and culverted into drainage ditches, straightened and canalised for navigation, or constrained by hard, lifeless banks."
"Only one acre in 40 of the flood-plain wetlands that once spread over our river valleys has survived centuries of drainage for intensive farming and urban development."
"One in three UK rivers is colonised by alien plants, and pollution is widespread, from sewage works and factories and poor agricultural practice."

Source: WWF report Living Rivers 1999, quoted in "Half of Europe's freshwater habitats 'ruined'" by Oliver Tickell, The Independent, October 1999.

Things are no better in Ireland:

"The most comprehensive report conducted on Irish rivers, lakes and coastal waters records further evidence of an almost unrelenting decline in freshwater quality, with a third of river channels classified as polluted."
The report shows: "a distinct trend of continually increasing slight and moderate pollution in rivers but also, especially of late, a reversal of the trend of decreasing serious pollution".
Rivers show "a very substantial increase in the number being seriously polluted by sewage" - an increase of 29 locations. The most likely cause of this is outdated or overloaded sewage treatment facilities.
"The worrying increase in pollution of Irish rivers between 1995 and 1997 is mainly due to manures, slurries and excessive spreading of artificial fertilisers which run off into water and cause eutrophication, an enrichment of water."

Source: Irish EPA report, quoted in EnviroLink/Irish Times: "EPA report finds unrelenting decline in freshwater quality" 20 May 1999.

Statistics from 1999

The following statistics come from the useful little booklet The Environment in Your Pocket (January 2001), published by the then Department of Environment, Transport, and the Regions (DETR). They apply only to the UK. We don't currently have comparable data for Ireland.

Inland Water

Coastal and Marine Waters

News stories

Mersey Cleanest for 200 Years: BBC news report from May 2003.

Other sources

For a detailed look at how water privatization policy led to a drastic degradation in the quality of the UK's rivers in the 1980s, look at The Dirty Man of Europe by Chris Rose, Simon and Schuster, 1990 and Coming Clean: The Politics of Water and the Environment by David Kinnersley, Penguin, 1994. Elizabeth Brubaker's presentation on Water and Wastewater Privatization in England and Wales: An Advocate's Perspective is a good summary covering similar ground.