The state of our inland waters

Last updated: 6 March 2007

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, you need to look at e-Digest Statistics about: Inland Water Quality and Use from DEFRA.

The picture in 2006

The latest (2005) figures have now been published in this Defra news release from 17 August 2006. Here are the latest charts from DEFRA. They show broad (and generally very encouraging) trends for the whole country, but they also disguise a few other (worrying) trends in particular regions (notably Anglia). See our own graphs below the DEFRA ones for more details.

• Chemical river water quality
• Biological river water quality
• Phosphate concentrations in rivers
• Nitrate concentrations in rivers
• Water pollution incidents
• Water leakage
• Water abstractions
• Drinking water quality

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.

The picture in 2005

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

The picture in 2003

This September 2003 news release from DEFRA updates the picture from 1999.

The picture in 1999: UK and Irish rivers under threat!

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, but if you know where we can find it, please let us know.

Inland Water

• Chemical river water quality: 1990-1999
• Biological quality of rivers and canals: 1990-1999 
• Phosphate concentrations in rivers: 1990-1995 
• Nitrate concentrations in rivers: 1993-1995 average 
• Water pollution incidents: 1985-1999 
• Average rainfall and temperature in England and Wales: 1845-1999
• Abstractions from non-tidal surface water and groundwater, by use: 1971-1998/9 
• Water leakage and target: 1994/5-1999/2000 
• Drinking water quality: 1992-1999 

Coastal and Marine Waters

• Compliance with the EC Bathing Water Directive (76/160/EEC): 1988-2000
• Compliance with EC Bathing Water Directive, by region: 2000
• Inputs (Direct plus Riverine) from the UK to marine waters around the UK, and quality of estuaries: 1991-1998 
• North Sea fish stocks: 1963-1998 
• Fish stocks around the UK within biological safe limits

Other sources

• Water quality in European lakes (1994): from the World Resources Institute. Includes data for Scottish lochs.

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.