News stories from 2025

Last updated: 10 January 2026.

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2025 news

December 2025

31 December 2025: How are warming waters changing UK seas?: Thanks to climate change, the composition of the UK’s marine environment is altering substantially. And according to a comprehensive study surveying the UK’s watery ecosystems back in June 2025, the key findings are stark.

31 December 2025: Where are we on ocean plastics?: Catherine Gemmell, Policy and Advocacy Manager at the Marine Conservation Society, discusses where we in the campaign against plastic pollution following progress in recent years and bans on polluting single-use items.

30 December 2025: From a football to a tyre: oddities blocking South West sewers: Sewers across the South West are being clogged not just by everyday waste but by a growing list of unexpected items including footballs, tyres and cleaning equipment, according to South West Water (SWW).

30 December 2025: First young salmon found in three rivers since 2015: Young Atlantic salmon have been spotted in three rivers in the north-west of England for the first time in 10 years. The species was declared critically endangered in Britain in 2023 but the recent discoveries in the Mersey, Bollin and Goyt mean salmon have been migrating from the Arctic Circle to successfully spawn.

28 December 2025: Why are councils voting for 'rights' of rivers?: The lawyers, campaigners and councillors behind the "rights of rivers" declarations accept it is up to Parliament to give England's waterways the same legal status as people. But they claim they are building a growing movement to improve the condition of the country's rivers.

27 December 2025: Mersey Rivers Trust: Citizen science hub: Lots of local river groups run citizen science projects. A few, including Mersey Rivers Trust, have documented what they do in detail--making a superb resource that will be of interest to many other groups.

27 December 2025: Young country diary: Our local river is clean again--and the birds are back too: Theo, aged nine, explains his delight in the rebirth of the River Wandle.

27 December 2025: Mersey Valley Way: First new National River Walk announced: Communities in Greater Manchester and the northwest of England are set to benefit from a new National River Walk, stretching 21 kilometres or the length of a half marathon. This walk is the first of its kind and is part of the government’s manifesto pledge to create nine new walks, one for each region of England.

25 December 2025: Inside plans to make London the UK's first 'swimmable city': A floating pool in the Thames and a beach in Hackney are just some of the ideas being discussed under plans to make London a "swimmable city", reports Lucie Heath for the I Paper.

25 December 2025: Ribble Rivers Trust wins national wild salmon conservation award: The Ribble Rivers Trust has won a prestigious new national award for wild salmon conservation, supporting a community-led river restoration project that will both protect an endangered British species and help reduce local flood risk.

15 December 2025: Tyne Tunnels Volunteers Dig Deep for River Don: A team of hardy volunteers from the Tyne Tunnels traded their desks for spades this week, joining forces with us to plant over 300 trees and shrubs on a farm near the River Don. Braving high winds and heavy rain, the dedicated group spent the day transforming the landscape as part of an environmental initiative to protect local waterways.

30 November 2025: Understanding Windermere's Decline: The Role of Treated Sewage: In Windermere, untreated sewage discharged for 33,410 hours between 2020 and 2024, all of it ending up in the lake. In the same period, Save Windermere's work with Professor Peter Hammond from Windrush Against Sewage Pollution (WASP) identified more than 600 days when spilling occurred illegally.

13 November 2025: Atlantic salmon in stretch of Derbyshire river 'extraordinary': The sighting of Atlantic salmon in part of a river in Derbyshire has been called "extraordinary" by conservationists. The young fish, known as parr, have been spawned in the River Ecclesbourne, near the site of the former Postern Mill in Turnditch.

18 December 2025: Teamwork secures milestone in Hampshire River Test restoration: Miles of chalk stream habitat in and around the Test in Hampshire have been improved in one of the UK's most substantial river restoration schemes, overseen by Wessex Rivers Trust.

18 December 2025: Marine Conservation Society: year in review: This year has been one of milestones for the Marine Conservation Society. Here's their round-up of recent Westminster wins, including the Water (Special Measures) Act.

17 December 2025: Don Catchment: Best moments of 2025: The Don Catchment Rivers Trust (DCRT) offers a choice selection of memorable moments from the past year.

17 December 2025: Why sewage can be a distraction: River Action launches new strategy: Despite popular claims that sewage is the leading cause of the UK river’s poor health, agriculture is the biggest culprit, affecting 45% of water bodies. This is the starting point for River Action's new Water Pollution Strategy, which focuses attention more firmly on agricultural impacts.

17 December 2025: The Riverfly Partnership: a year of collaboration, conferences, and citizen science: 2025 has been another fantastic and busy year for the Riverfly Partnership: "We’ve seen the volunteer network grow, reaching new geographical locations with new groups coming aboard from the rivers of Cornwall to the west coast of Wales, over to the Northern Ireland and all the way up to the Highlands of Scotland. Our geographical reach is larger than ever with over 700 rivers now being monitored by our 2000+ volunteers".

17 December 2025: Environment Agency signs 'death warrant' for river Wye say campaigners: Campaigners for the Wye are accusing the Environment Agency of doing too little to save their river. Voice of the River Wye's Louise Bodnar, said: "This is a death warrant for the Wye, it's sickening that those with the power to help the river choose not to. For the many farmers who want to improve the river this is a crushing blow. It describes how everything currently available in stewardship schemes won't be enough for the river to recover, but offers no support to do more".

16 December 2025: Another worrying "report card" from the warming Arctic: The Arctic is transforming faster and with more far-reaching consequences than scientists expected just 20 years ago, when the first Arctic Report Card assessed the state of Earth's far northern environment. The snow season is dramatically shorter today, sea ice is thinning and melting earlier, and wildfire seasons are getting worse. Increasing ocean heat is reshaping ecosystems as non-Arctic marine species move northward. Thawing permafrost is releasing iron and other minerals into rivers, which degrades drinking water. And extreme storms fueled by warming seas are putting communities at risk.

16 December 2025: Why we need to treat freshwaters as a network: It's time to stop thinking about waterbodies in isolation and start focusing on whole freshwater landscapes, says Freshwater Habitats Trust CEO Jeremy Biggs: "When we talk about freshwater conservation, it's natural to picture a healthy river, a pristine pond, or a thriving wetland. That's exactly how most people have traditionally approached protecting freshwater life – focusing on single habitats as if they exist in isolation. But wildlife doesn’t see the world that way. If we're serious about reversing the decline in freshwater biodiversity, we need to fundamentally change how we think about – and protect – our freshwater environment".

16 December 2025: First water voles spotted in River Thames in decades: Volunteers from the River Thame Conservation Trust (RTCT) have recorded vole activity on the River Thame near Chearsley, Buckinghamshire, and on Chalgrove Brook in Stadhampton, Oxfordshire.

16 December 2025: Plastic alert in the River Irwell: Bio beads, likely from a sewage works in Manchester, have prompted a pollution investigation by the Environment Agency.

16 December 2025: Past and future change in global river flows: A detailed review in the scientific journal Nature, from Lukas Gudmundsson and colleagues, summarizes the current understanding of past and projected changes in global river flow, focusing on annual volumes, seasonal dynamics and sudden changes.

15 December 2025: Biodegradable wet wipes? Not so much!: Scientists have tested, for the first time, how biodegradable wet wipes break down when flushed rather than composted discovering that most wipes remain after five weeks – a finding the research team say challenges the marketing of these products.

15 December 2025: Tenbury pupils help restore rivers and create greener school grounds: Schoolchildren across Tenbury Wells are playing a central part in a major effort to restore rivers, improve habitats and strengthen climate resilience in the Kyre Brook area. Supported by the David and Christine Lloyd-Jones Foundation, Severn Rivers Trust is delivering a long-term programme that brings together river restoration, nature-based solutions and hands-on community involvement. Local schools sit at the heart of this work, with pupils helping to create greener school grounds while learning how healthy rivers support both wildlife and people.

13 December 2025: Your new fake lawn is making flooding worse... but there is a £30 solution: The I calls out garden pavers and suggests we can all make a difference to floods and droughts by investing in a cheap and simple water butt.

13 December 2025: Salmon seen spawning after river restoration: Great news from the North, where West Cumbria Rivers Trust have new evidence of salmon migration.

12 December 2025: Paddle UK backs Sport England over proposed planning policies: Paddle UK is backing a campaign to prevent Sport England being stripped of its role in national planning policy. Campaigners say thousands of playing fields and facilities could potentially be lost to housing if the proposals go ahead. The Sport and Recreation Alliance's Protect Where We Play campaign shows that playing fields and pitches deliver at least £2bn in improved wellbeing every year and help 4 million people to be active, including one million children.

12 December 2025: Why are the Rhee and Cam so murky?: Cam Valley Forum's (CVF) Mike Foley presented a talk on river turbidity and its most probable causes in Cambridge recently; here's a write-up of his analysis and the slides that go with it.

6 December 2025: Monitoring the ecological status of the River Worth with electrofishing: ​River Worth Friends and the Aire Rivers Trust have been monitoring the ecological status of the Worth for a number of years, using electrofishing (to count the actual number and species of fish) and riverfly monitoring (to count the number of invertebrates living in the river, on which the fish feed). In this blog post, they explain how electrofishing works and how they analyse their results.

5 December 2025: River Education Flows to Tyne Schools: Tyne Rivers Trust shares the success of their recent educational outreach, bringing the Tyne catchment area to life for local students. Their recent activities have been a fantastic blend of interactive learning, artistic expression, and local history.

11 November 2025: The future of Scotland's seas depends on fair and effective marine planning: Scotland's marine environment, in all its diversity, is used by everything from fishing to energy to recreation. Offshore wind, though not exactly new, is using larger areas of sea, and is set to expand further. Due to increasing pressures, the way that Scotland's marine environment and these sectors interact needs to be managed. Deciding "what happens where" is the role of the National Marine Plan, which is the marine equivalent of Scotland's National Planning Framework. But though Scotland’s National Marine Plan has been in place since 2015, it has largely not been followed, and the health of its seas has suffered as a result.

13 December 2025: The race for Britain's EVs is poisoning water supplies... 6,000 miles away: Are electric vehicles environmentally friendly? Yes, but don't forget the hidden environmental impacts. The I Paper reports from the front lines in Chile and Peru, where mining for minerals is destroying the environment and impacting the health of local communities.

13 December 2025: London's other sewage scandal: Jim Waterson's London Centric investigates the huge, hidden problem of misconnections, where badly plumbed buildings send their sewage directly to streams and rivers.

13 December 2025: Prehistoric sea monster bigger than a killer whale may have terrorised rivers too: The mosasaur may have occupied a similar niche to modern-day saltwater crocodiles, according to Vishwam Sankaran, writing in The Independent.

13 December 2025: A murder mystery: who's killing the River Ems?: "Stand by the River Ems today and something feels wrong. This chalk stream, rising in the South Downs and slipping quietly towards Chichester Harbour, once ran cold and clear through its meadows. Now, in places, it is sluggish, shallow, or dry. What was once a living thread through the landscape now looks like a river that’s been allowed to fade away while everyone involved insists they’re doing their best". But who's really to blame for the death of the river?

12 December 2025: LNER Life In The Leeds Becks Project: Aire Rivers Trust has produced a new YouTube video explaining how Riverfly monitoring is being used by local communities. The charity works with local volunteer groups to monitor eight groups of invertebrate life in a Yorkshire river, collecting data that pinpoints areas impacted by pollution.

12 December 2025: Congratulations to campaigning journalist Lucie Heath!: Responsible for the I Paper's brilliant, hard-hitting "Save Britain's Rivers" campaign, Lucie has just been recognized for her work at the British Journalism Awards this week.

12 December 2025: Charting Britain's spectacular otter revival: Still rare only 20 years ago, the charismatic animals are in almost every UK river and a conservation success story, The Guardian reports.

Murky Water: Challenging an unsustainable system.

11 December 2025: New book: Murky Water: Challenging an unsustainable system: How to fix our broken water system? Private finance, public ownership... or something else? A new book by Luca Calafati, Julie Froud, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal, and Karel Williams argues that "Parliamentary politics is stuck and not engaging with the complex, interrelated problems of water management and rectifying the legacy of historical under investment. What then can informed and indignant civil society activists do? They have already changed the terms of public debate by naming the water companies and the Environment Agency as the guilty men responsible for the condition of water ways. Can they now pressurise the politicians for a package of effective policies to address water management?" The solution, the authors argue, is charging reform that delivers water justice: "Murky Water's radical analysis of water and sewerage will challenge industry insiders, right and left politicians and civil society activists" and is published by Manchester University Press (paperback, £14.99).

12 December 2025: Small sites must not be excluded from Biodiversity Net Gain: Last month, along with more than 80 conservation charities, ecological consultancies and rural businesses, Freshwater Habitats Trust wrote to the Defra Secretary of State Emma Reynolds, warning against the proposed exemption of small sites from Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG), under which developers are required to deliver a 10% uplift in biodiversity, from a baseline pre-development state.

9 December 2025: Salmon 'functionally extinct' in river due to weir: Campaigners who say salmon are close to extinction on Devon's River Sid say the species could be re-established if improvements are made to an old weir.

9 December 2025: Northern Ireland's rivers are high on drugs: Cocaine is widely present in the water of some of Northern Ireland's major lakes and rivers, a new study has found. Ketamine and amphetamine, two Class B drugs that are also used as pharmaceuticals, were also found as well as painkillers and antidepressants.

9 December 2025: Obituary: Professor Peter Maitland FRSE (1937-2025): The freshwater science community has lost one of its most respected and influential members with the death of Professor Peter Maitland FRSE on 24 November 2025: "A prolific scientist and writer, with 260 scientific papers and 15 books, Peter's name will be well known to those who have an interest in all aspects of freshwater science and conservation policy".

8 December 2025: Drought update: more rain, more floods, more science...: An update from the Environment Agency and the National Drought Group: "November saw 149% of the long-term average rainfall, which helped kick-start drought recovery but also brought flooding to many parts of the country. As several areas announced a change in drought status, the expert group also heard how the latest science is being used to better protect England against future water shortages."

8 December 2025: Devon County Council considers river rights: Devon County Council has stated its commitment to safeguarding the county's rivers, recognising their vital role in ecology, heritage, and community wellbeing. Councillors last week considered recommendations from its Cabinet in response to a Notice of Motion originally submitted by Councillor Jess Bailey (Independent, Otter Valley) calling for formal acknowledgement of the intrinsic rights of rivers in Devon. The motion highlighted the importance of Devon's waterways--including the Otter, Axe, Tamar, Dart, Exe, and Torridge--which support wildlife, livelihoods, recreation, and local economies. Let's hope their mineral planning department is listening.

7 December 2025: Should £68m plan to protect Dumfries from flooding go ahead?: Controversial flood protection plans for the Whitesands area of Dumfries will be discussed by the local council on 11 December.

7 December 2025: Grantham river group receives prestigious King's Award!: Keep Britain Tidy's Grantham RiverCare group has been honoured with a King's Award. Having carried out more than 150 river clean-ups since 2004, Grantham RiverCare is one of Keep Britain Tidy’s longest-running volunteer groups. From its beginnings in picking litter along the banks of the River Witham, this group of dedicated volunteers now also manage habitats, monitor and protect wildlife, and inspire others to get involved in their vital efforts.

7 December 2025: Farmers work together for cleaner drinking water in Wales: Over the next few months, Nature Friendly Farming Network (NFFN) Cymru will be teaming up with water company Dwr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) to raise awareness of how day-to-day farming decisions influence the water that ends up in people’s taps.

3 December 2025: Jim Murray's Art for the Wye: Activist, actor, and artist Jim Murray is sharing profits from his innovative river art with Friends of the River Wye.

2 December 2025: The UK government’s new Environmental Improvement Plan is a gift to the pesticide industry: Pesticides Action Network asks why pesticide-friendly language drafted by lobbyists has been finding its way into the wording of government eco-policy documents.

21 November 2025: The Mutual Benefits Of Working With Nature To Manage Floodwater: This summer, East Mercia River Trust's Sam Valman travelled to Scotland to help and learn from an international team of researchers monitoring a novel flood management scheme. Here's his report.

5 December 2025: Worldview: Why America Is Removing Thousands of Dams and Letting Rivers Run Free: Tara Lohan looks at the inspiring dam-removal movement in the United States and the amazing progress it's made.

5 December 2025: Nature recovery plan in England hit by clause allowing contracts to end with a year's notice: Practical conservation efforts could be hampered by legal bureaucracy, leaving land less protected in future.

5 December 2025: The cancer-causing forever chemical polluting most UK rivers: Most UK rivers are contaminated by a chemical called trifluoroacetic acid (TFA). Daniel Drage investigates TFA, one of the perfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS), often called "forever chemicals".

4 December 2025: Using citizen science to improve our becks and rivers for nature and people: The importance of citizen scientists in monitoring, reporting and campaigning for action on water contamination cannot be understated, writes David Miles for Yorkshire Bylines.

4 December 2025: Connecting Limbs: Meet the project which aims to bring life back to Sheffield's nature-depleted rivers: Claire Bithell of the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust (SRWT) explains the new Connecting Limbs project, which she is heading up: "Named after the project's prototype first step in the Limb Brook Valley near Whirlow, the team's aim is to restore heavily damaged ecosystems along the River Sheaf and its tributaries using nature-based techniques – or at least, methods that mimic the living world."

3 December 2025: Foam-covered river to be restocked with 3,000 fish: Following a major pollution incident and fish kill in Norfolk's River Thet, the Environment Agency will release a mix of native one-year-old species, including roach, dace and chub, into the river this week.

2 December 2025: River Action takes aim at Thames Water sewage spills: According to River Action: "We can today reveal, using documents submitted by Thames Water to Ofwat, that 93 sewage treatment works and water pumping stations the company promised to upgrade remain unfinished, leaving rivers across the Thames catchment exposed to continued pollution and dangerously high levels of bacteria. With Thames Water failing to act, 13 communities from Buckinghamshire and Elmbridge to Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Oxford and Richmond to Wokingham are now fighting back, sending statutory nuisance complaints to their local authorities to demand accountability and urgent action."

2 December 2025: Suffolk project uses River Gipping to heat buildings in Ipswich: A new Suffolk County Council project will harness naturally occurring heat from a river and use it to keep buildings warm in a town.

2 December 2025: UK is running out of water - but data centres refuse to say how much they use: The I's Lucy Heath investigates why some of the UK's most water-hungry infrastructure is shy of accounting for its environmental impact.

2 December 2025: Save the River Usk launches Water Bill for Wales!: "On December 2nd, we at Save the River Usk will be Launching a Water Bill for Wales, calling on the Senedd to introduce strong legislation that protects our Welsh rivers and coastal waters".

1 December 2025: Warwickshire Wildlife Trust launches £100,000 Wild Waters Appeal: Nature is disappearing at an alarming rate from Warwickshire's rivers, a charity has warned as it launches a £100,000 fundraising appeal. Warwickshire Wildlife Trust wants help to fund its work to restore the county's rivers and protect the wildlife living in and along the waterways. The Wilder Waters Appeal will help the trust to to re-wild riverbanks, make homes for wading birds, protect amphibians and create "nature-based" solutions to climate change.

1 December 2025: Walking for Water: Inside a 100-Day Pilgrimage for River Rights: Emmeline Hardisty describes her work founding the new Voices of Water Foundation (VoW).

1 December 2025: East Hampshire recognises the importance of local chalk streams and rivers: East Hampshire District Council has agreed to recognise the rights of the rivers that flow through the district.

1 December 2025: Join the 2026 PondNet Spawn Survey: help track the UK's frogs and toads this spring: Freshwater Habitats Trust is encouraging people across the UK to participate in the PondNet Spawn Survey, launching on 1st December. Anyone can get involved by recording Common Frog and Common Toad spawn they have spotted in their garden, community ponds, or in the countryside.

1 December 2025: Underwhelmed: The Wildlife Trusts' response to the Environmental Improvement Plan: From the Wildlife Trusts: "The Government have unveiled their much-anticipated new Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP). Whilst there are encouraging signs for nature recovery within the plan, at the same time the Prime Minister continues to favour the false narrative that nature rules are holding back growth."

1 December 2025: CRT Appeal Success: Creating New Wetland Habitats for Wading Birds: Thanks to last year's CRT Christmas appeal, new wetland habitats for wading birds are now thriving at Bere Marsh Farm in Dorset and Lark Rise Farm in Cambridgeshire. This year's CRT appeal is now live.

1 December 2025: Say no to farmed salmon for Christmas!: Open-net salmon farming is a notable cause of decline in UK populations of wild Atlantic salmon. WildFish's Off The Table continues in its mission to encourage the food trade to seek more sustainable alternatives.

7 November 2025: Just what is a "leaky dam"?: You might have heard us mention leaky dams before, but what exactly is a leaky dam? Charlotte Ireland Pope from the Ribble Trust explains.

November 2025

29 November 2025: More foam appears in River Gipping at Great Blakenham: Even more foam has appeared once again in a Suffolk river after seemingly going away in recent days.

29 November 2025: Revealed: Europe’s water reserves drying up due to climate breakdown: Vast swathes of Europe’s water reserves are drying up, a new analysis using two decades of satellite data reveals, with freshwater storage shrinking across southern and central Europe, from Spain and Italy to Poland and parts of the UK.

29 November 2025: Environment Agency seeks views on River Itchen plans: The Environment Agency is asking for public views on three proposals to enhance the River Itchen north of Woodmill near Southampton. The consultation runs until Friday, December 12.

29 November 2025: Project launched to protect rivers that feed North Devon's surf ecosystem: A pioneering partnership between the North Devon World Surfing Reserve (NDWSR), the National Trust, Earth Action North Devon (EAND) and the Save the Waves Coalition is driving an ambitious effort to restore and protect North Devon's rivers, beginning at Combesgate, near Woolacombe.

28 November 2025: Wallingford beach given 'sufficient' water quality rating: A popular swimming area for families on the banks of the River Thames has been given a "sufficient" water quality rating--a slight improvement on last year's "poor" rating and the only river bathing site in the country to receive this designation.

28 November 2025: Join ERN's upcoming webinars about free flowing river: Sign up now for two upcoming webinars: 16 December from 4pm to 6pm: "Axe Vienne Creuse Gartempe – Hydroelectricity or Refuge for Migratory Fish?" and "13 January from 4pm to 6pm: 25,000 km of free-flowing rivers for Europe – what is France doing?".

28 November 2025: Scotland launches fund to restore rivers and protect wild salmon: A £230,000 conservation fund to repair Scotland’s rivers and help halt the sharp decline in wild salmon and sea trout has opened for 2026.

28 November 2025: 'Disappointing' decline in salmon migration: There has been a "disappointing" drop in the number of salmon migrating upstream to spawn in the North West, according to the Ribble Rivers Trust.

28 November 2025: Campaigners to gather in Radcliffe over sewage in the River Irwell: Campaigners concerned about untreated sewage entering the River Irwell, which flows through Rossendale and Bury, have held a public meeting in Radcliffe.

27 November 2025: Essex wetland project will reduce flooding and restore nature: A new natural flood management scheme near Colchester, Essex is now completed, ready for winter. The Fiddlers Hill wetland project in Fordham, Essex has recently been completed. This natural flood management scheme increases the meadow’s capacity to hold water during heavy rainfall whilst creating habitats and enhancing biodiversity.

27 November 2025: Country diary: The river has risen to meet the trees. This is Storm Claudia's work: Paul Evans watches the ditches and drains from the hills of mid-Wales burst with rain, giving the Severn "a deadly seriousness".

27 November 2025: Chris Packham Calls For War On Climate Change: The broadcaster says conservationists like him have not done enough to protect nature and calls on the UK government to lead an emergency response to protect the environment.

27 November 2025: Petition call to save Pembrokeshire's River Cleddau: A call for a public commitment to save Pembrokeshire’s 'failing' River Cleddau has been made in a petition on the council’s own website.

27 November 2025: Muddy marvellous: celebrating 10 years of transformation at Wallasea Island: Ten years ago, you’d have been more likely to spot wheat than waders at Wallasea Island. But today, this stretch of the Essex coast is a thriving wetland alive with life. Spoonbills sift through saline lagoons, Short-eared Owls glide low over the reeds, and clouds of wading birds swoop and swirl across the sky. So how did an ordinary patch of farmland become one of the UK’s most remarkable conservation success stories? .

27 November 2025: Flea treatment – The silent river killer: "I was shocked to realise that I was part of the problem when I discovered the pollution of our rivers by the pesticides in the popular Spot-On pet medicines that are used to treat fleas and ticks", writes Jeff Gill in an enlightening blog post for River Action.

27 November 2025: Environment Agency fails to come clean on dismal bathing water quality: According to the Environment Agency: "The number of monitored bathing sites in England meeting minimum standards for water quality has risen slightly since last year... Out of the 449 sites regularly tested this summer, 93% met minimum standards for levels of bacteria in the water, linked to sewage spills, agricultural pollution and other factors. That is better than the 92% of 2024". But the two years aren't like-for-like comparable (2025 was a drought year with less rainfall and need for CSO spills) and the relatively new riverine bathing waters have quality that is, with only two exceptions, poor: 87% of the UK's 14 riverine bathing waters are unsafe. More from the Environment Agency.

26 November 2025: The Wildlife Trusts react to today's budget: Joan Edwards of The Wildlife Trusts, says: "In today’s budget, Rachel Reeves has allayed immediate fears that another wildlife-harming Planning Bill could be announced. However, we are not out of the woods yet. The risk of destroying Biodiversity Net Gain ambition, together with recent Nuclear Taskforce recommendations which could undermine environmental regulations, still cast doubt as to whether nature will be able to thrive alongside new homes and infrastructure. Meanwhile, policy and budget flip-flops are continuing to undermine farmers’ efforts to produce food sustainably".

25 November 2025: Conservation leaders warn of ‘Perfect Storm’ threatening England's wildlife and most special places: Two of the UK"s largest conservation charities, the RSPB and The Wildlife Trusts, are warning that the UK Government’s blinkered “Build Baby Build" agenda is creating a perfect storm of threats to nature, and that this is at odds with the public's ambition for protecting wildlife and habitats which is at an all-time high.

25 November 2025: England has just two clean river bathing spots - despite calls for 100 by 2030: A campaign to see 100 designated inland bathing waters in the UK by 2030 has a very long way to go. The latest Environment Agency figures reveal just two of 14 designated river bathing waters are safe to swim in.

25 November 2025: Councils continue to ignore advice on floodplain building: Almost 3,000 homes have been built in areas at risk of flooding against the official advice of regulators, according to Lucy Heath of The i Paper.

25 November 2025: Arctic Charr Symposium highlights urgency for conservation action: The Freshwater Biological Association (FBA), together with the Institute of Fisheries Management and supported by the Environment Agency, convened the Arctic Charr Symposium in October. The event brought together freshwater scientists, conservation practitioners and local stakeholders to examine the current status of Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in the UK and to identify priority research and conservation actions.

24 November 2025: Funding for innovative technology for protecting endangered salmon: The University of St Andrews is working with the Dee District Salmon Fishery Board (DDSFB) in its ongoing effort to protect the critically endangered Atlantic salmon on the River Dee by developing measures to reduce predation.

22 November 2025: River walk of the week: Devon's Powderham estate and Exe estuary: If you're anywhere near Exeter, try this fabulous coastal walk around some of the UK's best birding habitat and the glorious Powderham Castle.

21 November 2025: Never mind the birds; at least we have the streets: Irony of ironies! A study of Ordnance Survey data has revealed a huge increase in the number of new road names inspired by bird species that have undergone shocking declines and continue to be pushed closer to the brink. In RSPB's analysis of OS Open Names data for Great Britain covering 2004 to 2024, there's been a steep increase in the number of streets in new developments named after birds that are declining in the wild.

21 November 2025: Another COP out at COP30: The Guardian reports on yet another failed climate conference. How long before people finally accept that COP summits are part of the problem: all talk and no commitment to get to grips with climate change?

21 November 2025: Hereford Rivers Conference celebrates the Wye: The third annual Rivers Conference, organised and hosted by Herefordshire Council, is bringing together farmers, land owners, environmental groups and industry experts to look at innovative new solutions to help protect and restore the River Wye and tributaries.

21 November 2025: Fish passage improvement completed on the River Teifi: Natural Resources Wales' (NRW) Four Rivers for LIFE project has recently undertaken fish passage improvements on the Afon Siedi, an important spawning tributary of the River Teifi.

21 November 2025: River Arrow and Alne Revival (RAAR) gets to work in Alcester!: Hurrah! Great news that another new river protection group has just formed near Redditch.

21 November 2025: The Hidden Crisis: Bio-Beads Pollution: Following the Camber Sands spill, Surfers Against Sewage updates us on bio-beads and other BAFF media used by UK water companies.

20 November 2025: One fisherman's mission to get kids fishing!: The BBC reports on inspiring work by Kieron Banks of The Kendal Kingfishers Fishing Club, started in March 2024, who invites children and their parents or guardians to spend time on the riverbank.

20 November 2025: Over 2,450 jobs at risk if Biodiversity Net Gain is torpedoed: Ahead of the autumn budget, fears are growing among environmental and business groups that the Government could proceed with proposals to remove obligations to protect wildlife and make up for loss of nature on small and medium sized development sites. Recent research has unearthed the true cost to the economy of this damaging proposal.

20 November 2025: Salisbury's new flood defence park... floods: The £45-million Salisbury River Park, part of a flood defence scheme, flooded catastrophically and disappointingly this week.

19 November 2025: Return of the sailing ship?: The sail-powered Neoliner Origin set off on its inaugural two-week voyage from France to the US with the aim of revolutionising the notoriously dirty shipping industry.

19 November 2025: BugLife: Insect life continues to decline, despite a hot summer: The latest data show that the number of flying insects sampled on vehicle number plates across the UK has fallen by a staggering 59% in just 5 years.

18 November 2025: How the River Breamish was rewiggled: Another success story for the rewiggling movement. The Environment Agency has finished "unstraightening" the River Breamish on the Harehope Estate, south of Wooler in Northumberland, originally "unwiggled" for agricultural purposes.

18 November 2025: Leaving Labour for the Green Party over Thames Water: Labour councillor Martin Abrams explains why he switched parties following government failure to renationalize the water industry.

18 November 2025: A seal briefing from the NHM: Thanks to the Natural History Museum, we discover what makes a seal a seal, which species we can see around our coastline and how to watch them safely.

18 November 2025: More work needed on water efficiency: The Environment Agency's call for stepped-up water efficiency this week brought a few encouraging signs and statistics: slightly reduced consumption over last year, over 62% of households now metered, leaks at a 20-year low, new reservoirs coming onstream, and abstraction down significantly from 20 years ago. Or so the Agency claims. A critical reading of these numbers might easily pick them apart (of course consumption is down slightly in a drought year; why is water metering almost universal in some areas and more patchy in others...)

17 November 2025: Plastic wet wipe ban has 95% public support: Wet wipes containing plastic are a growing source of pollution, with a recent survey showing an average of 20 wet wipes littering every 100 metres of beach across the UK. When flushed, they can break down into microplastics that poison wildlife and enter the food chain.

17 November 2025: Worldview: United States: EPA Rule Would Drastically Curb Protections for Wetlands: Trump's latest environmental rollback: a proposal to strip federal protections from most U.S. wetlands, some of which feed drinking water systems.

17 November 2025: Waste mountain threatens the Charwell: The horrific fly-tipping mountain in Oxfordshire took a turn for the worse this week after heavy rains threatened to wash rubbish into the nearby River Cherwell.

16 November 2025: Irish Waters in Trouble: What's Really in Our Rivers?: A recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report reveals that almost half of Irish water bodies now fail to meet Environmental Quality Standards (EQS).

16 November 2025: Nature not a blocker to housing growth, inquiry finds: A House of Commons committee has attacked the "lazy narrative", promoted by UK government ministers, that nature is a "blocker" or an inconvenience to delivering housing.

16 November 2025: Citizen science tackles Dorset river pollution: How hundreds of Dorset volunteers are monitoring agricultural pollution through two citizen science projects: The Riverfly Partnership and Water Guardians.

16 November 2025: Sifting shift sands on the Camber frontlines: The Guardian talks to local residents who are doing their best to mop up a giant plastic spill at Camber Sands in Sussex.

16 November 2025: Toxic bio-beads wash up on East Sussex coast: According to Surfers Against Sewage, the environmental catastrophe at Camber Sands is a heartbreaking result of two broken systems colliding: a failing water industry and the systemic over-reliance on plastic.

15 November 2025: Government scraps planning protection: Housing secretary, Steve Reed, has instructed Labour MPs to vote against a series of Planning and Infrastructure Bill amendments designed for a fairer, more sustainable planning system.

15 November 2025: Thames Water blamed for blocking River Wandle fish: Thames has been accused of bucking the growing trend for "unblocking" and "undamming" rivers by installing unpassable fish barriers in a London river.

14 November 2025: Clean up the New River: residents: A group of Hackney residents are calling on Thames Water and two London councils to join them in their mission to clean up the New River, the historic aqueduct that carries water to London from Hertfordshire built over 400 years ago.

14 November 2025: Fly (tip) me a river: An outrageous case of fly-tipping has seen a mountain of rubbish dumped in Kidlington, north of Oxford, on the River Cherwell floodplain.

14 November 2025: "Widespread drought" predicted for 2026: Recent heavy rain is little compensation for months of recent dry weather. Current Environment Agency predictions signal major drought problems unless the winter is very wet indeed.

12 November 2025: 'City's becks are really important for river health': Aire Rivers Trust describes the benefits of its new Roots in the River project, which aims to restore Bradford's becks and waterways.

12 November 2025: New report shows people don't want new homes to be built at nature's expense: The "More in Common" report for the RSPB shows people want developers to build with nature, not against it.

11 November 2025: Otter delights in the River Biss: An unusual but very welcome visitor raised spirits in Trowbridge, Wiltshire this week.

11 November 2025: FoE's useful guide to community rights, environment and planning laws: From Friends of the Earth, a useful new summary of the legal and planning system and how to have your say on decisions about your local area.

11 November 2025: Water campaigner refuses to pay sewage bill - but has no regrets: Weymouth's Caz Dennett has withheld part of her water bill as part of the "Don't Pay for Dirty Water" campaign... and even court action by Wessex Water has failed to deter her.

11 November 2025: Is mismanagement failing the River Lugg?: Campaigners have claimed failure to manage water levels in the River Lugg is damaging an important habitat at Lugg Meadow.

9 November 2025: Amazon tree-felling blamed for polluting UK rivers: Tree-felling in the Amazon rainforest is partly to blame for pollution that is plaguing UK rivers such as the Wye, a new report suggests.

9 November 2025: Lords support planning bill protections: A vote in the House of Lords has offered a glimmer of hope for our most vulnerable habitats and species and could remove the most dangerous element of the Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

6 November 2025: "Cake and eat it" now works fine, says green capitalist Tony Juniper: Interesting to compare Tony Juniper's recent "cake and eat it" article here with his 2007 Guardian piece here.

6 November 2025: Stemming the tide of antimicrobial resistance in rivers and seas: Cutting-edge research from Exeter University "highlights the hidden danger of AMR in our waters, revealing how human activities contribute to the accumulation of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria and antimicrobials. By understanding the complex factors driving AMR in the natural environment, we can develop strategies to mitigate this threat and protect public health".

6 November 2025: Footpath 47: A natural and social sanctuary under threat: From Thames21: "In a small corner of East London, the Barking riverside offers one of the city's quieter, wilder spots. Footpath 47, a public right of way, is home to wildflowers, grassland and saltmarshes. Its birdlife consists of avocets, skylarks, reed buntings and linnets amongst many others. As a sanctuary to wildlife, the river space offers Barking residents a rare connection to nature. However, the space could potentially be under threat from one of London's largest development project plans that promises 20,000 new homes in the borough".

5 November 2025: The Rubbish Raft: An adventure into Manchester's polluted waterways: Adventure filmmaker and presenter Raphael Holt sets out on an ambitious journey to raise awareness of the issues facing Manchester's waterways by building a raft from rubbish collected along the riverbanks and sailing it across the city. In this first blog for The Rivers Trust, he sets out his plans and shares his motivations.

5 November 2025: Concerns over Cuckmere Valley plans: National Trust plans to flood part of the Cuckmere Valley, which leads to the Seven Sisters, have raised concerns about upstream impacts.

5 November 2025: Thames River Trust seeks a new trustee: Thames Rivers Trust (TRT) "is seeking a new Trustee to put forward new perspectives, increase our Trustee Board’s diversity and skillsets, strengthening TRT for a resilient future. This voluntary role is open to all qualifying individuals, including those with no previous Board or Trustee experience".

5 November 2025: How a 'forgotten' river shaped Nottingham: Dr Rachel Dishington and Dr David Beckingham from the University of Nottingham have a new exhibition all about the history of Nottingham's River Leen.

5 November 2025: Rewilding European rivers: Healthy, living rivers sustain people and nature. By removing dams, reflooding wetlands, reversing channelisation, and releasing wildlife, Rewilding Europe and its partners are revitalising rivers in rewilding landscapes across the continent.

4 November 2025: Citizen science on the River Teme: When the River Teme collaboration began, the question was simple: could citizen science generate water quality evidence that regulators and river users could trust? Together, Severn Rivers Trust, Severn Trent Water, the Environment Agency and local volunteers set out to find the answer.

4 November 2025: What could Special Administration mean for water companies?: Surfers Against Sewage explores what might happen if and when water companies fail.

4 November 2025: Surfers wrongfooted by vanishing Eisbach wave: A famous standing wave in Munich, similar to the Severn bore, has mysteriously disappeared after upstream maintenance.

4 November 2025: Citizen scientists test Stroud pollution: Volunteers from The Stroud Valleys Project (SVP) have been out and about testing for nitrate and phosphate pollution.

1 November 2025: Weekly sewage spills blight Windermere: In The I Paper, Lucy Heath reveals the pollution blighting Windermere... and the Environment Agency's patchy record on taking action.

1 November 2025: River Cam restoration raises questions about Water Restoration Fund: In a recent comment piece, the Cam Valley Forum welcomes the "Collaborative Restoration Plan for the Cam", but argues that the government's Water Restoration Fund is just a drop in the ocean (river) of what's really needed and a fraction of what was promised in return for water company fines.

1 November 2025: "Right to roam rivers" protests begin: Various mass-trespass protests are happening this month to highlight calls for better access to riverbanks.

1 November 2025: How fish adapt to autumn: Dr Janina Gray of WildFish explains how fish adjust their behaviour alongside the changing seasons.

1 November 2025: New river path for Kendal?: Westmorland and Furness Council is behind the plans for the path in Kendal, Cumbria, which aims to give people more opportunities to move around the town without using cars.

1 November 2025: Harold Hill river cleanup begins: Havering Council has joined forces with volunteers from Thames Chase Trust to clean up a river in Harold Hill as part of its flagship "Where We Live" campaign. The aim was to clear the rubbish that people dump in the river and carry out a litter pick around the river banks.

1 November 2025: Canals and rivers lack climate change funds: Three-quarters of the country's waterways face financial peril, according to the Inland Waterways Association (IWA), an independent charity advocating for Britain’s canals and rivers, as the country braces for heavier winter rainfall and intensifying summer droughts.

22 October 2025: British fish records: How the UK’s biggest fishes are found: James Ashworth explains how Natural History Museum scientists verify big fish and how they use record breakers to better understand life in the UK#s waters.

21 October 2025: Inside the Credit War for Control of Thames Water: Philip Greenwood of Waterways Protection explains why the Thames Water crisis is a sign of a much deeper and more systemic problem: so-called "water" companies are really just investment vehicles.

26 September 2025: Reclaiming the River Stour: River campaigners say the River Stour has become so choked with excess reed and tree growth that in places it represents a danger to canoeists and other river users. The River Stour Trust and Sudbury Canoe Club are launching a new joint campaign to restore the waterway..

October 2025

31 October 2025: New Nature Adventures for Nursery Groups: Up in Edinburgh, Water of Leith have just launched some "new programmes for nursery-aged children, giving little learners a hands-on opportunity to explore the nature and wildlife of the river corridor".

31 October 2025: River restoration improves habitats in East Anglia: A report on how the Environment Agency and Waveney, Lower Yare and Lothingland Internal Drainage Board (IDB) have reconnected habitats on Starston Beck in Norfolk.

31 October 2025: Tell your tales of the River Tweed: Residents from north Northumberland and the south of Scotland are being invited to share their stories and love of the River Tweed. The Destination Tweed project team want the tales to help entertain, educate and inspire visitors who come to experience the new River Tweed Trail when it is completed in 2028.

30 October 2025: £2m project to track 'forever chemicals' in UK rivers: A £2 million national research project will investigate how toxic 'forever chemicals' are polluting rivers and wildlife, starting with the Thames. The four year UNSaFE project, (UNderstanding the Scale, Sources, Fate and Effects of PFAS pollution), will look at how PFAS (manmade compounds used in everyday items like non-stick pans and waterproof coats) spread, how they affect ecosystems, and how best to monitor and reduce the risks. Scientists from Brunel University of London, Imperial College London, King’s College London, and the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology are leading the research. Funded by the government’s UKRI (UK Research and Innovation), they’re joined by the Environment Agency and citizen science charity Earthwatch.

30 October 2025: River Usk comes to life in community exhibition: A powerful new exhibition at Newport’s Riverfront Gallery brings together young people and the local community to celebrate and reimagine the River Usk

29 October 2025: Should the River Thames have the right to go to court?: Hoi Mok, a law student at King's College, explored the issue through a public stall at the Kingston River Cultures Festival recently: "Many supported the idea as an effective way to protect rivers, while others questioned its redundancy considering existing public environmental awareness".

29 October 2025: Saving species in the River Irfon catchment: my time at Freshwater Habitats Trust: Kirsty Allwood reflects on what she learned in her time working on the River Irfon in mid Wales.

29 October 2025: Witney water fair showcases river progress: West Oxfordshire District Council's Waterways Fair took place this week, informing the local community about efforts to tackle river pollution and flooding.

28 October 2025: Thinking with rivers book reviews: A thoughtful back-to-back review of James Scott's "In Praise of Floods" and Robert Macfarlane’s "Is a River Alive?" published in Commonweal this week.

27 October 2025: Thames Water bill boycott vindicated?: A man who has refused to pay his "Thames Waster" bills for over two years believes the Environment Agency's latest report on failing water companies vindicates his action.

27 October 2025: Could leaky dams stop flash floods?: Shropshire Wildlife Trust has been building "leaky dams" (placing branches and twigs across small waterways) to slow downstream river flows and reduce flooding in Gloucestershire.

27 October 2025: What happens if Thames Water falls?: River Action's Samir Seddougui explores a secret government rescue plan called Project Timber.

24 October 2025: Playing river bingo at Glenevin Waterfall: Inishowen Rivers Trust describes its river bingo game: a fun way to help students explore the health of their local rivers.

24 October 2025: Drought likely to continue into 2026 due to record dry weather: The National Drought Group has warned "England must prepare for an ongoing drought in 2026, unless there is significant rain this autumn and winter. England needs at least 100% of average rainfall (482mm) to largely recover from drought by the end of March next year. For context, only two months of 2025 have seen more than 100% so far".

23 October 2025: Ilkley Clean River group keeps up the (water) pressure: One of the North's more energetic river groups is tightening the screws on Yorkshire Water: "More of the same privatised system will not deliver a clean water or water security whilst profit trumps the environment".

21 October 2025: Thames Water wants permission to pollute Britain's rivers until 2040. No, seriously: Lottie Elton, for the Big Issue, explores how Thames is seeking exemption from pollution requirements.

21 October 2025: Radley Lakes: Further Scything at Barton Fields: Step away from the tractor! Sixteen volunteers from Abingdon Green Gym scythed, raked and stacked a large meadow beside the lake at the eastern end of Thrupp Green on Saturday 4th October.

21 October 2025: Draw me a river? Design me a jumper...: Suffolk Wildlife Trust is calling on members to "wrap up the year with creativity, warmth and a jumper that celebrates everything we love about winter... especially the wildlife and natural beauty right on our doorstep".

9 October 2025: Burton's washlands river project is finished!: The impressively restored Burton Washlands is part of a plan to put the River Trent back at the heart of the historic brewing town, with a new play area, improved flood defence, boardwalks across the floodplain, and enhanced wildlife habitats.

7 October 2025: First pine martens released in Exmoor National Park in landmark nature recovery project: A pioneering nature recovery project has reintroduced 19 pine martens to Exmoor National Park, marking the official return of a native species lost for over a century, according to Devon Wildlife Trust.

29 September 2025: Recovery of Lough Neagh 'could take decades' due to depth and complexity of the problem, says environment minister: Frightening news from the Belfast Telegraph as algae continues to blight Lough Neagh.

24 October 2025: 21 years of Thames21!: Congratulations to one of London's best-known and most inspiring community river groups, which celebrates a milestone birthday this year.

24 October 2025: McGill researchers find rivers high on antibiotics: A new study of world rivers reports a worrying double whammy: antibiotic resistance in humans and dangers to aquatic life in freshwaters.

24 October 2025: Tyne rivers become "calendar girls": Stuck for a Christmas present? Tyne Rivers Trust's newly revealed 2026 calendar features stunning shots of inspiring northern waterways.

23 October 2025: Environment Agency continues to call for urgent action as water company performance declines: An insipid press release from the Environment Agency (EA) has "called on water companies to urgently improve their performance as the latest Environmental Performance Assessment (EPA) for 2024 reveals the lowest ratings since the process began in 2011".

23 October 2025: Water companies league of shame - see how yours ranks for sewage spills: Lucy Heath of the I Paper singles out Southern Water and Thames Water for particular criticism.

23 October 2025: WildFish wins on Welsh farmers' pesticide records: Following pressure from WildFish, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has ruled that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) must comply with its obligations under the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 and disclose records of pesticide use by farmers in Wales: "Members of the public have a right to see what is going into our rivers. This decision will ensure the public can be properly informed."

23 October 2025: Thetford River Group calls for legal action over foam spill: A mysterious pollution episode in Norfolk has killed fish and left clean-water campaigners calling for urgent action.

22 October 2025: Community projects could be powered by Cheddar!: Not cheese, but a long-neglected waterfall at Cheddar Gorge, where enthusiasts hope to install a small water turbine to raise money for local causes.

22 October 2025: Government promises faster sewage fines: Will accelerated water fines help make sewage spills a thing of the past? Not until we have better ways of handling flash floods and stormwater overflows, but it may help reduce the worrying trend of reckless spills.

22 October 2025: Lyme greens reject tainted water cash: Lyme Regis environmental charity Little Green Change has refused a £4,825 grant from South West Water, which it says has "continued to prioritise huge shareholder payouts over much-needed investment in infrastructure which is outdated and in need of urgent improvement".

22 October 2025: Inside the illegal eel trade: is there a way to stop Europe’s biggest wildlife crime before it's too late?: The Guardian explores why efforts to stop the multibillion-euro eel trafficking industry have failed, and how to save the endangered fish.

22 October 2025: Supreme Court upholds Habitats Regulations: Wildlife and Countryside Link has welcomed a Supreme Court judgment upholding the Habitats Regulations. The ruling makes clear that the Habitats Regulations provide continuing protection for sites of international and national importance throughout the development process. By rejecting arguments that duties to assess environmental impacts are limited to the earliest stages of planning, the Court has ensured that nature protection remains a live duty throughout the entire planning consent procedure.

22 October 2025: Welsh waterway consultation gets underway: Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has opened its second public consultation as it takes the next steps towards future plans to manage the health of Wales rivers, streams, lakes, groundwaters and coastal waters. The consultation will run between 21st October 2025 and 21st April 2026, and gives people the opportunity to have their say on the current challenges facing Wales’s waters, and the actions needed to overcome them.

21 October 2025: UNEP announces new efforts to turn the tide on plastic: The first Annual Plastic Reboot Conference kicks off in Salvador, Brazil from 22-24 October 2025, bringing together 15 countries and global partners tackling plastic pollution through the Plastic Reboot programme.

21 October 2025: Still time to win Atlantic Salmon Trust's auction!: If you've money to spare, there are some very impressive fishing slots up for grabs in AST's fundraising auction, which runs until 30 October.

21 October 2025: Paddling for water reform: Paddle UK's Head of Access and Environment, Ben Seal, reports progress lobbying for "clean water and clear access" in the Water Reform bill.

21 October 2025: Rivers Trust makes space for water at 10 Downing Street: On the 15th October, representatives from the Riverscapes Partnership, supporting MPs, river ambassadors and champions, hand delivered a letter advocating for the Making Space for Water campaign to the Prime Minister at Number 10, calling on the Government to support the creation of nationwide river corridors.

13 October 2025: Simon Francis speaks to Fly Culture: Wild Trout Trust chairman Simon Francis sets out his vision for the future in a chat with Fly Culture Podcast host Pete Tyjas.

13 October 2025: Ken Whelan: a river runs free: Atlantic Salmon Trust vice president Ken Whelan, also of the East Wicklow Rivers Trust, discusses the importance of removing barriers that impede fish migration with RTE.

9 September 2025: Citizen science: BART's river results are in: Bristol Avon Rivers Trust (BART) presents the results of its annual Bristol Avon RiverBlitz, which, this year, saw 303 volunteers collect 267 water samples from across the catchment.

16 October 2025: Just add water: heavy rainfall revives ancient species on the Scottish Solway Coast: Recent wet weather has hatched a new population of the rare and ancient Tadpole Shrimp – one of the world's oldest living animal species – at RSPB Mersehead in Dumfries, only the third population of the species in the UK.

16 October 2025: River Action: It's time our supermarkets expose Red Tractor's greenwash and up their standards: According to River Action's Charles Watson: "Britain's rivers are in terrible shape, and our biggest supermarkets are up to their necks in it. For years, retailers like Tesco and Asda alongside their agribusiness suppliers have hidden behind the cosy logo of Red Tractor, telling customers their food is "farmed with care... from field to store all our standards are met". This week the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) called time on this charade."

16 October 2025: Overconsumption and ruin: before and after images visualise how tech could harm our planet: The Guardian reviews a new exhibition that explores how our growing tech obsession could wreck historic places like Venice.

16 October 2025: Worldview: Watching longnose gars spawn in a crystal-clear Florida river: A stunning river photo from Isaac Szabo is a glimpse into one of more than 1,000 waterways fed by freshwater springs renowned for their clearness.

16 October 2025: What killed fish in Six Mile Water?: Investigators probe a "significant" fish kill in County Antrim.

16 October 2025: Thames Water finishes £6 million improvements to New River: London's historic aqueduct, dating from 1613, has just had some major improvements to stop leaks.

16 October 2025: Drinking water worldwide in danger: Researchers have a warning about tidal rivers: Growing salination in tidal rivers is threatening freshwater use for drinking water and irrigation.

16 October 2025: The hidden sources of forever chemicals leaking into rivers - and what to do about them: Gemma Ware and Patrick Byrne investigate the problem of industrial chemicals that just won't go away.

15 October 2025: Designing a flood-friendly garden: Gardening tips from the Environment Agency may be welcome to those whose homes periodically disappear underwater, but might be a bit of a distraction to most of the 6.3 million properties in England alone that are now at risk of flooding.

15 October 2025: Greatham Beck restoration gets underway: The Environment Agency (EA) project is the latest stage of the Tees Tidelands Programme which aims to help the River Tees estuary adapt to climate change.

15 October 2025: River Action dents the Red Tractor!: Another campaign victory for River Action. A complaint they made about a misleading advertisement for the Red Tractor farm-assurance scheme's implied environmental benefits has been upheld... and the offending ad banned.

15 October 2025: Worldview: The Moroccan lake on the front line of the climate crisis: From the Natural History Museum, a fascinating big-picture look at how climate change is impacting Morocco, and how a clean energy transition might help.

15 October 2025: Wiltshire MP criticizes water companies and their rising bills: Sarah Gibson, Liberal Democrat MP for Chippenham, has criticised the Competition and Markets Authority's decision to allow five water companies, including Wessex Water, to raise bills beyond Ofwat's original approval.

15 October 2025: "Every English river is dying." But it’s not too late to save them from destruction: Country File presents another interview with Robert Macfarlane.

15 October 2025: CPRE: More worrying government attacks on the planning system: From CPRE: "Late on Monday night, the government announced a raft of last-minute amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill. The amendments raise questions, including new powers for ministers to overrule local planning decisions and proposals to reduce Natural England’s oversight on more 'minor' developments. However, we’re concerned about the continued rhetoric from government. Ministers are speaking of 'tearing up red tape' and 'removing obstacles' and taking an increasingly bullish approach which is showing little respect for scrutiny, transparency and meaningful engagement".

14 October 2025: Rewiggling the River Ash!: An eight-year project to restore a 4.3-mile (7km) stretch of a rare chalk Hertfordshire river to its original course has been completed.

12 October 2025: Pea soup duckweed chokes York's River Foss: Concerns have been sparked over the build-up of duckweed in York after swans were seen struggling through the dense growth.

12 October 2025: Is sewage leaking into rivers, lakes or seas near YOU?: Even the Daily Mail, not noted for its environmental credentials, is now piling pressure on "dirty" water discharges.

2 October 2025: Paving over the garden? It raises the risk of your house flooding: Professor Bill McGuire of University College London explains why modern paving is a natural (and unnatural) disaster.

10 October 2025: New Forest citizen scientists discover major sewage spill: Untreated sewage from homes and businesses has been flowing straight into Lymington River for decades, according to local water testing by Friends of the Earth.

10 October 2025: Small waters promise big nature win: Freshwater Habitats Trust explain why small waters, such as ponds and lakes, need to be part of the forthcoming Water Reform Bill.

10 October 2025: Everyone's Evenlode engages 4,000 children with rivers: Rowan Wynne-Jones reflects on the successes and challenges of the four-year Cotswolds National Landscape Everyone Evenlode, hands-on educational project.

10 October 2025: Myth Busting: Would it really cost £100 billion to bring water utilities into public ownership?: River Action's Samir Seddougui explains why government refusal to renationalize the water industry on cost grounds is a deliberate distraction.

9 October 2025: FT mocks river rights movement as "twaddle": "If rivers can have rights", says the FT's Robert Shrimsley, "Not only should our rivers be unpolluted by sewage, our debate could be uncontaminated by twaddle". Greens, he argues, "take a perfectly good idea — protecting rivers — and find a way to make it risible".

9 October 2025: [£££]: Retracing the lost river that was built to quench London's thirst: The New River Canal has largely been lost to history, but there remain clues to this extraordinary construction, as The Times (pay-walled) discovers.

9 October 2025: Three years on – a renewed call to protect Garnock Estuary wildlife haven: Local community groups and national wildlife organisations have once again called on Scottish Government agency NatureScot to urgently act to protect one of Ayrshire’s most important wildlife sites.

9 October 2025: World view: Dammed if you do in Europe: Once lagging behind, Southeastern Europe is now seeing growing action to dismantle outdated dams, weirs, and culverts that fragment rivers, disrupt fish migration, degrade water quality and pose risk of failure. A new report reveals that river restoration through barrier removal--a critical tool to revive Europe’s freshwater ecosystems--is gaining unprecedented traction in Southeastern Europe .

9 October 2025: More focus on water saving allows 21,000 homes to go ahead in Sussex: A new agreement will allow building 21,000 homes in Sussex after a four-year pause due to concerns over the amount of water being taken from rivers and wetlands in the Arun Valley. But descriptions of the plan as "sustainable" are still very wide of the mark.

9 October 2025: Take a friend fishing for free!: The Angling Trust is promoting the revival of the free fishing scheme, running over Christmas and New Year.

9 October 2025: The areas where water bills are rising by up to £43 a year: Five water companies have permission to raise bills more than expected to pay for water upgrades. But let's remember the I's other recent story from a few weeks ago, highlighting that over a quarter of our bills go to paying water company dividends and debts.

9 October 2025: Salisbury campaigners push for Bathing Water status: River campaigners For Love Of Water (FLOW) CIC, Extinction Rebellion Salisbury, and the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust have joined forces on an application to make Salisbury's Queen Elizabeth Gardens a designated bathing water with regular pollution monitoring.

8 October 2025: CPRE joins the attack on National Park rollbacks: Reports suggest that the government is considering amendments to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill that could limit planning restrictions within National Parks. The amendments to the bill could see the removal of the Protected Landscapes duty; a move that over 170 organisations across the UK have warned would open the door to damaging development in some of the country’s most treasured landscapes.

6 October 2025: Cumbrian farmers win legal battle over dredging: A group of 49 farmers has won a long battle to clear the River Winster, after the Cumbrian town of Grange-over-Sands suffered 10 years of what they describe as "avoidable" flooding.

5 October 2025: Major Welsh river works completed to support wildlife: Natural Resources Wales (NRW) has successfully completed a programme of improvement works at Bontnewydd weir on the Afon Gwyrfai, removing barriers to fish and eel migration and strengthening the riverbank for the future.

3 October 2025: York gets a new river trail!: As part of York Walking Festival and York Environment Festival, York residents joined a creative riverside walk to help shape the new York rivers trail. The trail, co-designed with schools, stakeholders and local communities, will blend art, science and local voices to tell the city’s flood and climate story when it plans to launch in summer 2026.

3 October 2025: River Wye pollution prompts UK's largest environmental lawsuit: Around 4,000 people have joined a class-action lawsuit against alleged pollution of the three rivers by two poultry producing companies and Welsh Water.

1 October 2025: The Wildlife Trusts' ten top nature moments this autumn: Changing colours and slowing seasons offer some magical moments for wildlife.

1 October 2025: New species delight visitors at WWT's first Dragonfly Festival: WWT Slimbridge recorded its first ever breeding pair of willow emerald damselfly; with a southern migrant hawker dragonfly spotted at WWT Welney and WWT London for the first time – adding a total of 35 new species to their reserves.

15 September 2025: Burning banned on England's deep peat to protect wildlife: ARC updates us on the extended ban on burning heather and grass, which is designed to improve air quality for local communities, reduce flood risk and protect wildlife..

3 October 2025: Rivers, Community and Connection: ImMerse Festival Celebrates Annandale's Waterways: More than 100 people from across Dumfries and Galloway came together during the ImMerse Festival last week to explore the River Annan’s journey from sea to source.

3 October 2025: Rescued crayfish released back into river: Critically endangered native crayfish that were rescued from a Yorkshire river impacted by drought conditions have been safely released back into the wild, the Environment Agency reports.

3 October 2025: Hidden Bristol river celebrated with immersive artwork: Bristol's increasingly engaged river community has been celebrating the hidden river Malago with help from composer Liam Taylor-West.

3 October 2025: Dam-busting boost to Yorkshire fish migration: Yorkshire rivers are benefiting from a £21 million clean-up of "damnable" old mill structures and barriers of other kinds to help fish migration and improve habitats.

3 October 2025: King’s Lynn campaigners celebrate the Gaywood River: Local residents gathered at the South Quay in King's Lynn last week to celebrate World Rivers Day with stories, poems, and songs.

3 October 2025: Government gives £10 million in water fines to local projects... but what about the rest?: "Over £10 million in water company fines directed to restore local waterways through 51 projects aimed at cleaning up rivers, lakes and seas", according to the Environment Agency. Sounds great, but if you have more than a goldfish memory, you'll recall the sum promised in June 2025 was £100 million. So where has the rest gone?

3 October 2025: Exciting new Blueprint for South Hams (Devon) rivers: A South Hams collaboration, BLUEprint-for-Rivers, is pulling farmers, councils and residents into the same room to cut pollution at source and push for tougher accountability from water companies.

3 October 2025: New educational game teaches children about climate change and coastal flood resilience: Bringing the impacts of the dynamic processes shaping the coastline to life in an engaging way, CoastCraft (based on Minecraft) challenges players to respond to rising sea levels and the impacts of climate change such as flooding, balancing the needs of different communities while protecting the environment.

2 October 2025: Thames Water wants to escape river pollution rules: According to The Guardian, creditors of the embattled water company are seeking exemptions from environmental legislation until the company is back in the black, between 2035 and 2040.

2 October 2025: Will new packaging regulations finally make a difference to pollution and litter?: Companies who pollute the world with excessive packaging will soon get bills for doing so, but will the new Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) system make the difference we need? Surfers Against Sewage's Plastic Pollution Policy Officer, Ruby Free, investigates.

1 October 2025: Will London rivers actually benefit from water pollution fines?: New Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds is making much of the government putting £3 million of pounds from water company pollution fines back into London river projects. But it's merely huff-and-puff PR unless the water companies are actively stopped from polluting any further; not if they try to dodge future environmental regulations, as Thames Water (see previous story) is now trying to do.

1 October 2025: World view: How China just wrecked a Zambian river: If you think British rivers are in crisis, spare a thought for people in Zambia who are dealing with the aftermath of a giant chemical spill from a Chinese state-owned copper mine.

1 October 2025: Shrewsbury campaigners are still Up Sewage Creek: Why an anti-pollution group in Shrewsbury is still arguing for round-the-clock monitoring of the River Severn.

1 October 2025: Liverpool Mayor unveils ambitious new vision to clean up rivers, prevent flooding and maintain water supplies: Mayor Steve Rotheram has unveiled an ambitious vision setting out how the Liverpool City Region will clean up its rivers, canals and coastline, protect against flooding and maintain a reliable water supply.

1 October 2025: Toxic road run-off is back: Almost 30 years ago, in the mid-1990s, we did a lot of work on polluted road run-off with the Newbury Bypass Monitoring Project and Neil Ward, then a chemistry professor at Surrey University who had previously studied the toxic chemical impacts of the M25. According to campaigners at Transport Action Network, Highways England (formerly the Highways Agency) still hasn't learned the importance of keeping road runoff out of nearby watercourses.

September 2025

30 September 2025: Welcome back, mass sewage discharges!: Months of drought have pushed sewage overflows slightly from the news, but the Big Stink is back again: according to The Rivers Trust, 1,300 storm overflows have been pumping out sewage at hundreds of locations around the UK after heavy rain and strong winds.

29 September 2025: School pupils help to monitor River Tweed's health: After a summer of high water scarcity across the Scottish Borders, pupils at Earlston Primary school have been helping to check on the health of the River Tweed.

28 September 2025: 'I live near a Labour "new town" - they'll build on land which always floods': Tempsford, a candidate for one of the government's flagship new towns, is seriously prone to flooding, according to wary locals.

27 September 2025: Where your water bill actually goes — as water companies pay billions in dividends: Another revealing piece from Lucy Heath and the i's Save Our Rivers campaign: "Over a quarter of the average water bill in England is being spent on [water company] debt and dividends".

26 September 2025: New festival celebrates the River Tweed: A look at October's exciting new Tweed River Festival, where it will be held over the next three years, and why.

26 September 2025: Bristol river pollution revealed in the RiverBlitz: This year's RiverBlitz campaign, by the Bristol Avon Rivers Trust, reveals concerning pollution levels in the River Frome at Downend and Frenchay.

26 September 2025: Dam Removal Day is on 8 October 2025!: More correctly "river unblocking day", this event celebrates efforts to free rivers from dams of all shapes and sizes (even very tiny ones). Dam Removal Europe, organizing the event, consists of WWF, The Rivers Trust, The Nature Conservancy, the European Rivers Network, Rewilding Europe, and Wetlands International.

26 September 2025: Otters spotted on the Cam: After all the bleak news from Cambridge recently, a chance to get involved in putting things right... and a timely sighting of an otter at Logan’s Meadow Local Nature Reserve.

26 September 2025: Why rivers are crucial to the Amazon's tipping point: The Amazon's tipping-point transition from rainforest to savanna will have much to do with atmospheric "flying rivers", according to Monitoring of the Andes Amazon Project (MAAP).

26 September 2025: Rivers at Risk: a call to protect national park freshwaters: A timely report led by the Campaign for National Parks in partnership with the Rivers Trust underlines why we need to protect the best remaining freshwaters, says Freshwater Habitats Trust Technical Director Dr Naomi Ewald.

26 September 2025: Wildlife Trusts: New report shows UK nature bearing brunt of chaotic climate: The Wildlife Trusts publish their new assessment of the effects of climate change on nature across the UK. The report, Resilient Nature, shows how much-loved species and habitats are faring across The Wildlife Trusts' 2,600 nature reserves in response to the changing climate and extreme weather over the past year.

25 September 2025: Rivers are heating up faster than the air: that's a problem for aquatic life and people: Li Li, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Penn State University, explains why climate change is heating freshwaters faster than the air: "Riverine heat waves – periods of abnormally high water temperatures in rivers – are becoming more common, more intense and longer-lasting than they were 40 years ago. Their frequency, intensity and duration are also increasing at rates more than twice as fast as heat waves in the atmosphere".

25 September 2025: Wales water summit drives solutions: This week, the Welsh Deputy First Minister will outline how government, farmers, water companies and environmental groups must work together to clean up Wales' rivers and coastal waters.

24 September 2025: Shaping a water resilient world, with water security for all: The UN's Inger Andersen reminds us why a focus on the world's water resources is more timely than ever.

24 September 2025: Is the Vistula drying up? It's more complicated than that...: Over in Poland, the Vistula isn't drying up, but does face complex, interconnected environmental threats.

24 September 2025: New mural celebrates Sheffield rivers: A "Rivers and Hills" mural in Sheffield celebrates the city's five rivers and hilly landscape.

24 September 2025: River Skerne disappears under mysterious "snow" foam: A mystery pollution incident in Darlington is under investigation by the Environment Agency this week.

24 September 2025: Norfolk Broads rivers drowning in sewage, new report warns: Over 90% of rivers in the Norfolk Broads are in failing health, according to the CNP report released a couple of weeks ago.

23 September 2025: Labour wants to save water to build homes to waste water: Lack of joined-up sustainability has been a hallmark of the Labour government's "environmental policies" from the start; and there's no real mention of the urgent necessity to use water wisely in the long term in the latest news release from Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds.

23 September 2025: Greenpeace celebrates Global Ocean Treaty: The world's new ocean law is a big win; Greenpeace's Ariana Densham explains why this victory for 15 years of campaigning really matters.

21 September 2025: Water voles are back in the River Lea: Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust have returned 100 water voles to the Upper River Lea, Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire this week.

21 September 2025: Assembly: London needs target for swimmable rivers: Plans to make rivers clean enough for wild swimming need clear targets, say the Environment Committee of the London Assembly.

20 September 2025: Learning from Sarawak's SAVE Rivers: Friends of the Earth has an enlightening guest essay from Celine Lim, managing director of SAVE Rivers, who explains how indigenous peoples are protecting their land and our planet.

19 September 2025: Join the Big River Watch 19-25 September: Do your bit for citizen science: watch your local river as part of the Rivers Trust's free and easy Big River Watch project!

19 September 2025: High Seas Treaty becomes law: A major new piece of international environmental law is set to kick into action in January 2026 now it's been ratified by 60 nations.

19 September 2025: Cotswold MP joins call for cleaner rivers: Dr Roz Savage, MP for South Cotswolds, took part in a citizen science water project recenttly, as part of local efforts to monitor pollution and protect wildlife along the Thames.

19 September 2025: Uncovering London's secret River Westbourne: Katie Forge explores one of London's fascinating secret rivers, hidden deep beneath Sloane Square station.

19 September 2025: The long, slow collapse of the River Cam: Calls for help from Cambridge where algae-choked punts tell a sad storage of "sewage pollution, over-abstraction, and inaction".

19 September 2025: How I tracked the biggest hidden sources of forever chemical pollution in UK rivers: Patrick Byrne of Liverpool John Moores University explains how his team developed a new method to track and prioritise the largest sources for clean-up, giving regulators a clearer picture of where to act first.

19 September 2025: London needs ten new wild swimming spots: A new report champions urban swimming in the very heart of London.

19 September 2025: Innovative wireless river monitoring projects scoop tech award: A series of clever monitoring projects, launched by the River Severn Partnership, have won a "Best New Initiative in the Water Sector" award at the Water, Wastewater and Environmental Monitoring Expo (WWEM), held at the NEC Birmingham this week.

18 September 2025: Protecting the Ribble River with Darwen RiverBlitz: Volunteers led by the Ribble Rivers Trust will be checking their Lancashire river's health and ecological status this weekend.

18 September 2025: Ellie Chowns, MP wins Rivers and Seas prize for River Wye work: Green MP Ellie Chowns has been awarded the Rivers and Seas prize at this year’s Political Purpose Awards for her work protecting the River Wye.

18 September 2025: Cumbrian rivers project narrowly misses global environmental prize: Cumbrian River Restoration Partnership Programme has narrowly missed out on the prestigious Thiess International Riverprize Awards. The transformative programme has restored over 100 kilometres of watercourses and reconnected 100’s of hectares of floodplain across the Eden, Derwent and Kent catchments.

17 September 2025: Revealed: river pollution twice as bad inside national parks as outside them: A report by the Campaign for National Parks (CNP) and The Rivers Trust has found shocking levels of sewage inside some of the country's most protected landscapes.

17 September 2025: Wild swimming on World Rivers Day: A look at how "millions" (really?) are reconnecting with rivers through wild freshwater swimming.

17 September 2025: Nearly half of Exmoor's rivers are below good ecological standards new report reveals: According to the new CNP/Rivers Trust report, Exmoor is one of many national parks failing the standards we expect of our most protected places.

15 September 2025: 60% of world rivers had too much or too little water in 2024: More bad news for rivers. The World Meteorological Organization's latest report notes that "2024 is the 6th year in a row showing an erratic hydrological cycle."

15 September 2025: Small rivers and streams could lose out to Agency cuts: The Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) is "very worried" by an Environment Agency (EA) plan to stop maintaining small rivers and streams, which, it argues, could worsen flooding.

15 September 2025: Save our Swale applies for bathing water status: The River Swale could become a designated bathing water if local campaigners in Richmond, North Yorkshire, get their way.

15 September 2025: It might be raining, but we're still in drought: The National Drought Group has warned that the current drought is far from over despite the recent rain. Even with the wet weather at the end of the month, August's rainfall was just 42% of its long-term average and the summer has been declared the hottest since records began in 1884. Five areas remain in drought, with more areas likely to declare drought status within the next few weeks, as groundwater and reservoir levels across England continue to recede.

15 September 2025: Sheffield gets a new river!: The River Sheaf, hidden underground for over 100 years, is set to be uncovered in a new development and public park next year.

15 September 2025: Chesham weir revival key to trout revival: Plans for a new fish pass at Lord's Mill on the River Chess could see the return of trout, absent from the upstream section of the river for nearly three decades.

15 September 2025: Bristol radically reimagines rivers: A look at some of the people and projects making new (old) links with rivers by delving back into folklore, storytelling, and other age-old ways of connecting with nature.

6 September 2025: It's CPRE Countryside Day!: Celebrate all things country with rural champions CPRE today.

6 September 2025: Country Diary: Walking the River East Allen: The Guardian's ever-thoughtful nature diary reflects on the "the daily strangeness of this 'false autumn'" as leaves flutter down on a Northumbrian river.

6 September 2025: Why it's bad news for the Vjosa, Albania's wild waterway: The Telegraph reports how the "once-pristine wild waterway in Albania is rapidly turning into a "hellhole".

5 September 2025: Survey: The Changing Status of Freshwater Biodiversity in the UK: The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology is running an online survey of "individuals and organisations involved in freshwater biodiversity and  water quality research, monitoring, policy, and conservation in the UK", designed to "capture community knowledge, needs, and priorities with respect to monitoring of freshwater biodiversity, and the pressures it faces, in the UK. We will use this information to develop the structure and content of a subsequent online workshop, in which a smaller team of invited experts will explore how well-equipped we are to detect and understand the effects of pollutants on the health of UK freshwaters." Please take a look and join in if you're interested.

5 September 2025: Barely news: SAS river swimmers team thwarted by pollution!: An attempt by eight swimmers from around the UK to relay the length of the River Thames this week was helpfully thwarted by (guess what) dangerous levels of water pollution: the very issue the swimmers were trying to highlight!

5 September 2025: Wessex Water sniffs out the sewage: Nosy tracker dogs have a nasty new mission: helping Wessex Water spot pollution leaks across its network.

5 September 2025: New policy proposal for Wilder River Banks is key to reversing river decline: The Wildlife Trusts have published new proposals for Wilder River Banks to underpin a brighter future for English and Welsh waterways, which put restoring natural habitat at the heart of plans to tackle the poor state of rivers.

5 September 2025: Salisbury: Have your say over plans for bathing water status at River Avon: A public consultation has been launched to gauge views on whether part of the River Avon at Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury should officially receive bathing water status.

4 September 2025: Microfibers threaten Hampshire chalk streams: Citizen scientists working with the University of Brighton have documented worrying amounts of microfiber plastic in the River Itchen in Hampshire.

4 September 2025: It's a barbel whopper!: Over in Southampton, news of first-time barbel fisherman Lee Edmond-Hiett, stoked to land a 16lb 8oz barbel with the help of a cheesy garlic bait in his first attempt targeting the species.

4 September 2025: New Yealm seagrass meadow created from 'castaway' plants: The beginnings of a new seagrass meadow in the River Yealm have been planted thanks to volunteers largely from the Environment Agency. A trial supported by the local community is harvesting rafts of dwarf seagrass adrift in the Kingsbridge and Tamar estuaries and replanting them at a new home on the River Yealm Estuary shoreline near Steer Point, Brixton.

3 September 2025: Derwent anglers trap American signal crayfish: Belper and District Angling Club have been given permission to remove 3000 of the invasive, alien crayfish species, which pose a threat to native white-clawed crayfish.

3 September 2025: Exploring the rivers of Cheshire: The 31st British Rowing Tour: Some 80 rowers from 18 different clubs took part in the 31st British Rowing Tour last weekend. With rowers from Maidstone, Bath, Tynemouth, and everywhere in between, including local representation from Royal Chester RC, the tour discovered two new touring routes in Cheshire. This included rowing almost the entire navigable length of the River Weaver and a 7 km section of the River Dee.

2 September 2025: Water voles return to the River Wey!: Nearly 200 water voles have been released in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire along the River Wey as part of plans to return the animals to the area, having not been seen in about 20 years.

1 September 2025: Thames GB swimmers fight sewage to highlight water pollution: Eight world-class swimmers, sponsored by the campaign group SAS, made a 200km (124-mile) swim relay along the length of the River Thames this week to raise awareness of the UK's "sewage crisis".

1 September 2025: Calling citizen scientists#1: Join the Great UK WaterBlitz: 19-22 September!: Fancy water-testing your local river? Join Earthwatch and about 6000 other water testers in their citizen science project over the weekend of 19-22 September 2025.

1 September 2025: Calling citizen scientists#2: Join the Big River Watch: 19-25 September!: Twice a year, the Rivers Trust runs a Big River Watch, and the next one will take place in September. Anyone can take part in these week-long citizen science surveys that help to build an important picture of river health across the UK and Ireland. Just download the app, spend 15 minutes watching your river, and upload the results.

1 September 2025: BugLife joins campaign to save Coul Links: News of the campaign to stop a vital, internationally recognized Scottish wetland from becoming... yet another golf course.

1 September 2025: Newtown residents team up to save drought parched fish: Locals in Powys turned out to save thousands of "gasping" fish threatened by dwindling water levels in Aberhafesp Brook, prompting a disagreement over whether relocating the fish did "more harm than good".

1 September 2025: Eel Wipeout feared in Lough Neagh: The Belfast Telegraph reports on how toxic algae may have killed "millions of eels" in the UK's biggest lake.

1 September 2025: Research reveals 24 most important landscapes for freshwater wildlife: A new study has identified the 24 most important landscapes for freshwater wildlife in England and Wales: the regions richest in freshwater plants and animals.

August 2025

29 August 2025: New Widlife Trusts report reveals massive impact of pig and poultry farming: The waste from pig and poultry production is about 10.4 million cubic metres per year in the UK, equivalent to 4,160 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The high level of nutrients found in poultry maste make it hard to use sustainably. A new independent report, commissioned by The Wildlife Trusts, has for the first time, investigated the cumulative impact of the UK pig and poultry sector on the wider countryside. The findings reveal the deep impacts of these increasingly intensive industries on water quality and pollution levels.

29 August 2025: Tyne Rivers Trust tackles historic mine pollution: How the Tyne Rivers Trust is working with undergraduate Tom Teasdale, from Northumbria University, to measure pollution in the Swinhope Burn, a tributary of the River East Allen in Northumberland, using geochemical analysis.

28 August 2025: Wild swimming in Shrewsbury? There's an app for it!: Wild swimmers in Shrewsbury can now make better-informed decisions about river safety through an expanded regional pilot project, which monitors river water quality on a daily basis. The Environment Agency has installed high-tech autonomous sensors in the River Severn at Shrewsbury, to remotely provide daily readings on bacteria levels including E. coli.

28 August 2025: Cunning river ramp busts plastic with bubbles: A simple but very cunning new invention, developed in Derby, pushes plastic to the surface of a river where it can be collected more easily.

28 August 2025: The River Evenlode catchment: a community’s ongoing fight against water pollution: Laura Bannatyne shares the inspiring story of one local community's determined fight against water pollution.

28 August 2025: Somerset river lovers fight on for eels: A great account in The Guardian of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project, and related efforts to boost the critically endangered species.

28 August 2025: River Action and SAS take apart the Independent Water Commission: A great new report (PDF format) from two of our most vociferous clean water campaign groups explains what the recent IWC report got right and wrong about proposed water reform.

28 August 2025: Sargasso Sea surveys find vulnerable sperm whales and elusive pygmy sperm whales, as Greenpeace calls for ocean sanctuary: More from Greenpeace's Sargasso campaign... and why it matters to us here in the UK.

27 August 2025: Lakes around the world are in decline. Here's why – and what can be done about it: There are more than 100 million lakes dotting the planet, according to one prominent study. But many aren't what they used to be. "Today, some of the world’s best-known and most important lakes are a shadow of what they were just a few decades ago," says Dianna Kopansky, the head of the Freshwater Ecosystems and Wetlands Unit of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). "We need to reverse this decline. If we don't, it could be calamitous for the hundreds of millions of people who rely on lakes for their survival.".

26 August 2025: Suffolk's Four Rivers Project extended: A citizen-science sewage and water-quality monitoring project that began on the River Deben three years ago will now be extended to the Alde-Ore river system, the Waveney,and the Blyth.

26 August 2025: Anger over River Wharfe abstraction: Yorkshire Water is feeling the heat over plans to take more water from Ilkey's river, including the first area in the country to be designated as an inland bathing spot in 2021.

26 August 2025: Potentially polluting Kennet poultry farm kicked out by planners: River campaigners in Berkshire have won a notable victory against greedy Suttons estates, which was trying to build a poultry shed for 32,000 chickens. Keen readers will remember that Suttons estates was also connected with the Newbury bypass controversy three decades ago, which caused significant damage to the Kennet and Lambourn rivers.

25 August 2025: Hosepipe ban could last until winter: Water companies are warning that there's no plan to lift temporary water restrictions anytime soon, despite intermittent rain this week.

25 August 2025: How rivers carry plastic across continents: A new study by the University of California at Santa Barbara, spanning four continents and eight countries, has amassed one of the largest datasets ever collected on plastic pollution in rivers — offering insights that the researchers responsible believe are key to helping turn off the tap of plastic waste.

25 August 2025: Drought Parches the Yakima River Basin: In case we're tempted to think Britain's drought is special, it's worth looking at what's happening elsewhere in the world. Over in Washington state, NASA explores how the Yakima River Basin has entered drought for the third year in a row.

25 August 2025: And now for some good news from the Marine Conservation Society: Tired of all the gloom? Check out this month's roundup of positive ocean news from MCS.

25 August 2025: Canals feeling the strain of our dwindling rivers: The Canal and Rivers Trust presents an update for inland boaters: "Water levels in some reservoirs are dropping towards minimum levels, with particular pressure on reservoirs feeding the Ashton, Caldon, Grand Union Leicester Line, Grand Union Leeds and Liverpool, Macclesfield, Peak Forest, Rochdale, South Oxford and Trent and Mersey canals. Several lock flights across Birmingham have been closed to preserve water including Brades, Minworth, Rushall and Tame Valley and Wolverhampton".

25 August 2025: Wild Atlantic Salmon: Restoring the Run: A new short film, "Wild Atlantic Salmon: Restoring the Run", was released on 24th July 2025 through YETI's YouTube channel. Making the film was a huge combined effort involving YETI's production team; the Atlantic Salmon Trust; Bywell Salmon Fishing; The Deveron, Bogie and Isla Rivers Charitable Trust; and Deveronside Fishings. It also features Atlantic Salmon Trust ambassadors, Marina Gibson and Richard Davies, as well as many other individuals who have come together to tell the important story of wild Atlantic salmon in the UK.

25 August 2025: Running for rivers with the Rivers Trust: In September, Team GB Rower and Olympian, Graeme Thomas, will take part in a 43-mile ultramarathon, tracing the route of Atlantic salmon up the River Exe, from the sea at Exmouth to the spawning grounds on Exmoor, raising funds for The Rivers Trust. The run, known as the Salmon Run, will coincide with the Big River Watch, the nationwide citizen science survey taking place over the same weekend.

20 August 2025: Creative ways to save water: reduce your use to support our rivers: Matthew Woodard of the Rivers Trust writes: "River levels in the UK are worryingly low. Help ease the pressure on our rivers and water supplies with our creative ways to reduce your water footprint during dry spells".

Happy National Fishing Month to anglers everywhere! Photo of Myton Fields, an open space by the River Avon in Warwick. © Copyright Robin Stott, originally published on Geograph and licensed for reuse under a Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0) Licence..

22 August 2025: The Rise of Plant Life Changed How Rivers Move, Study Shows: A new study from Stanford University challenges conventional wisdom about braided and meandering rivers. The new research suggests the theory that braided rivers dominated the first 4 billion years of Earth’s history is based on a misinterpretation of the geological record.

22 August 2025: Greenpeace: Why we need to protect the Sargasso Sea: Bermuda's Noelle Young has called for urgent global action to protect the Sargasso Sea, which provides migratory routes to humpback and sperm whales, breeding grounds for European eels, and nursery habitats to species found nowhere else on the planet.

22 August 2025: Sewage pollution fears in River Medina on the Isle of Wight: Sick swimmers and dead fish... but what's really responsible for dwindling water quality in the Isle of Wight's biggest river?

22 August 2025: More rivers tie the knot: The Canary reports on Extinction Rebellion's Dirty Water campaign and World Water Wedding, a range of actions for people to pledge their troth to protect rivers and water bodies across the country.

22 August 2025: Is the Strid in Yorkshire the world's deadliest body of water?: Science writer Helen Pilcher explains why a tiny slice of this northern river is so very dangerous.

21 August 2025: Three Rivers: A new book by Robert Winder: The FT reviews Robert Winder's new book, which argues that Europe's three great rivers, the Rhine, the Rhone and the Po, gave rise to the three great national cultures of Germany, France and Italy.

21 August 2025: Why the 2025 Global Plastics Treaty Collapsed in Geneva... and what comes next: Surfers Against Sewage explains how vested interests conspired against international control of plastic production (and the water pollution it causes).

21 August 2025: Still time to check your bug splats for Buglife!: The Bugs Matter survey, an annual citizen science project from Kent Wildlife Trust and Buglife, has captured the imagination of nature lovers nationwide. Using the simple but ingenious method of monitoring insect splats on vehicle number plates, the project provides crucial data about insect abundance across the countries. There is still time to get involved: the 2025 survey concludes on Tuesday 30 September.

20 August 2025: Angry Feargal lawyers up: Amwell Magna Fishery (AMF) angling club and its most famous member, clean river champion Feargal Sharkey, are threatening legal action over the Environment Agency's decision to reduce the flow of the River Lea.

20 August 2025: Can new technology save our rivers?: Water companies are still stuck in the 19th century world of Joseph Bazalgette, or so we like to think. But this week's Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival shows water firms in a much more positive light, with a range of new ideas under discussion, including wastewater biofuels, new planning tools for local authorities, and fresh ideas for cutting storm sewage overflows.

20 August 2025: Friends warn again of planning foe: Friends of the Earth has issued fresh warnings about watered-down nature protections in the proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill.

20 August 2025: Yorkshire Water will take more from its rivers: New government permits have been issued so the water company can abstract extra supplies from the River Wharfe and the River Ouse.

20 August 2025: Warminster sewage tank will protect Wiltshire rivers: Almost flushed with success, a giant new 400,000 litre sewage tank is nearing completion in Wiltshire, greatly reducing the risk of sewage overflows into the the Were and Wylye rivers.

19 August 2025: Thames runs dry near its source: Dry weather has taken a toll on the Cotswold source of the Thames after almost half a year of little or no rain.

19 August 2025: Anglian Water accused of running Heacham River dry: Sedgeford Parish Council has complained to Anglian Water that overabstraction is damaging the chalkstream Heacham River in Norfolk.

19 August 2025: Citizen scientists warn about Windermere: The Big Windermere Survey, which took 1000 water samples from 100 locations, reveals "really concerning" pollution and has prompted calls for "decisive action".

19 August 2025: Freshwater Habitats Trust warns of attack on Habitats regulations: The Habitats Regulations, originally conceived as part of the 1992 EU Habitats Directive, are under fresh assault from government planning "reforms". The Trust is particularly concerned about the plight of newts: "Given the endless frontbench scapegoating of bats, newts and snails, we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised to find protected species designations are also in the firing line. Initial reports suggest that Great Crested Newts will be amongst the first species to be delisted."

19 August 2025: Devon students build otter habitat out of recycled flood defence: Kingsley School students in Bideford have built an otter habitat using recycled timber from local flood defence works at Kenwith Valley reservoir. Next up, they'll be installing a live camera to monitor otter as part of their classroom studies.

18 August 2025: Salmon breed on the Don for first time in 200 years: Great news from the Don Catchment Rivers Trust (DCRT), covering Yorkshire and Derbyshire, which has confirmed the discovery of a wild-born Atlantic salmon in the river, the first evidence of successful spawning since salmon were wiped out by pollution and manmade barriers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

18 August 2025: Pensioners pay the hidden cost of rising water bills: Disturbing news from charity Independent Age that almost half of older adults are cutting back on personal hygiene, laundry, and other water use as bills begin to rise to protect rivers.

17 August 2025: How is England running out of water?: The Guardian has an interactive feature explaining where our water's gone (and going to go).

16 August 2025: Welsh fish are cooking in the heat: More hot weather concerns in Wales where rivers are becoming "too hot for fish".

16 August 2025: River Tas meanders make a comeback: The rewiggling trend (unstraightening rivers by restoring natural meanders) continues in Norfolk with news that the Environment Agency plans to restore the River Tas in Forncett St Peter.

16 August 2025: River Cam feels the pressure: Lib-Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has been visiting Cambridge to draw attention to the river's growing problems.

15 August 2025: Scottish river levels are critical: The River Don and the Firth of Tay are among areas of Scotland causing grave concern.

15 August 2025: Coming soon: CPRE's second countryside day: September 6 marks the second annual celebration of all things country from rural champions CPRE.

15 August 2025: Abingdon reservoir bill triples to £7.5 billion: Virtually bust Thames Water has revealed extensively revised plans for the proposed Abingdon Reservoir that could cost three times more than its previous guesstimate.

14 August 2025: Celebrating water crowfoot in Ireland: The Guardian's Mary Montague considers the virtues of R. fluitans, the water crowfoot, related to buttercups, found only in Six Mile Water river, County Antrim.

12 August 2025: Five areas remain in drought with six more in prolonged dry weather: As the National Drought Group meets once again, there is still drought in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lancashire, Greater Manchester Merseyside and Cheshire, East Midlands, and the West Midlands; while areas in prolonged dry weather (close to drought) are Northeast, Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire, East Anglia, Thames, Wessex, Solent and South Downs.

12 August 2025: What's the connection between water sports and ocean conservation?: Surfers Against Sewage look in much more detail at why water users are more likely to protect the places they surf, swim, and paddle in.

11 August 2025: UN plastic treaty talks ends in failure: Plastic producers and petroleum companies will be popping champagne corks this week with news that years of negotiations to tackle the global plastic crisis have ended in no agreement.

11 August 2025: Pick of the best British boat trips: The I pulls together a selection of 30 river, lake, and coastal boat trips.

11 August 2025: Port of London Authority tackles Wet Wipe Island: A vile pile of wet wipes near Hammersmith Bridge, equivalent to the weight of 15 double decker London buses, is set for a busting by PLA excavators.

11 August 2025: Controversial Oxford bridge sees multi-million pound budget boost: Oxford councillors have voted to throw more money behind the proposed Oxpens River Bridge, but local campaigners are concerned about flood risk and damage to woodland.

8 August 2025: Human connection to nature has declined 60% in 200 years, study finds: Miles Richardson, a professor at Derby University, reports findings of his latest research.

8 August 2025: Hector smashes it!: Backed by Surfers Against Sewage, and backing their campaign for clean water, Olympian Hector Pardoe has swum Loch Lomond, Windermere and Llyn Tegid in under 24 hours to help fight the sewage scandal.

8 August 2025: Duchess of Cocklemoor back on the water!: A Somerset community boat targeted by vandals has been repaired and refloated with "overwhelming" support from donations.

8 August 2025: 20% of river improvement cash will go straight to private investors: The I is first off with the next river scandal: some £22 million of the £104 billion proposed for river investment by the government last month "will go to private investors, not cleaning up rivers".

8 August 2025: Eely good news in the South Downs National Park: Western Sussex Rivers Trust and the South Downs National Park Authority are making new lanes to improve eel migration to the Sargasso Sea.

8 August 2025: Corporate capture of the Plastics Treaty?: The Independent reports on concerns that petrochemical lobbyists are working hard to undermine the proposed global plastics agreement in Geneva.

8 August 2025: Greenpeace report exposes petrochemical giants' campaign to derail Global Plastics Treaty: More on that story. Alexandra Sedgwick explains how plastic vested interests are conspiring against efforts to make the industry more environmentally friendly.

7 August 2025: Don't forget anglers, Shropshire MP tells minister in charge of rivers: Water reforms need to ensure Britain's four million anglers are fully engaged in changes to how the industry is regulated.

7 August 2025: Test Valley embraces river rights: Hampshire councillor Geoff Cooper reports on how Test Valley Borough Council (Romsey and the surrounding area) became engaged with the Rights of Rivers campaign.

7 August 2025: Tyne River Trust gets boost for river education: Meanwhile, up north, Tyne Tunnel Operator TT2 has donated £20,000 to the Trust's educational programme so more children understand their river and why it matters.

7 August 2025: Buglife tells Google to search for a new data centre: Google's "sprawling" plans for a new data centre in Thurrock are "putting the future of its nationally important invertebrate populations at risk".

6 August 2025: Water monitors installed to track river pollution: Why Northumbria Water is installing nearly 400 water monitors in Northumberland and North Yorkshire over the next four years.

3 August 2025: New storm tunnel will improve the River Ribble: Read all about a multi-million pound project to improve stormwater storage (equivalent to 26,000 bath tubs of water) on the Ribble.

3 August 2025: Magic boom boat monitors fish under cover of darkness: An interesting article about the Environment Agency's "Thames Trout" electro-fishing boat, and how it's monitoring thousands of fish on the river this summer.

1 August 2025: Are cattle *really* the enemy?: A great article from Penny Williams of the Freshwater Habitats Trust challenges the standard four-legs-bad line on cattle grazing: "People often assume that ponds should be fenced off from livestock and other grazing animals like deer. But when used appropriately, grazing can create and maintain the short vegetation and open, muddy conditions that many freshwater species need to thrive".

3 August 2025: How does sewage get in rivers?: Luke Powell visits a Severn Trent sewage works to find out "What happens after you flush the toilet?".

July 2025

31 July 2025: Bristol clean water campaigners on tour!: Conham Bathers, a group of open-water swimmers from East Bristol, are taking their message about clean water to other parts of the UK.

31 July 2025: What is the Global Plastics Treaty, why is it important for ending plastic pollution?: Surfers Against Sewage offer a handy briefing about the forthcoming Geneva conference where negotiators from over 145 countries will meet to try and agree how to end plastic pollution.

31 July 2025: More councils recognize river rights: Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust continues its sterling work spreading the word about the rights of our rivers to councils in the South.

31 July 2025: Wear Rivers Trust happy spotting otters: Why more otter sightings are such good news for the quality of the River Deerness in County Durham.

30 July 2025: Won over by wild swimming: A correspondent on Gloucestershire Live reports on how they were bitten by the wild swimming bug.

30 July 2025: Yes, let's enjoy our riverbanks... but we need access first: The Guardian offers an editorial plea for better access to riverbanks and the glorious walks they can offer.

30 July 2025: Balsam bashing in Lyme Regis: River Lim Action are among many groups taking on Himalayan Balsam this month.

30 July 2025: How Plastic Pollution Flows from Rivers to Oceans and How to Stop It: Community-led research from University of California - Santa Barbara's Benioff Ocean Science Laboratory spans three years, four continents and eight countries to reveal the scale of river plastic waste and offer solutions to stop it at the source.

25 July 2025: Sh***y water's no fun for summer swimmers: Why swimmers in Whistable are feeling turned off by poor summer water quality.

24 July 2025: New film shows how making the right decision on the water can help Scotland's wild salmon survive: Fisheries Management Scotland has launched a compelling new short film, Small Changes, Big Impact, urging Scotland’s angling community to take simple steps that can make the difference between life and death for wild Atlantic salmon.

26 July 2025: Wet wipe polluters should pay: The Guardian has latched onto a suggestion in the Cunliffe report that makers of wet wipes should pay the enormous cost of cleaning them up.

26 July 2025: What can European countries teach us about cleaning up water?: Tanju Radhu from Loughborough University offers some insights from Croatia, Germany, Albania, and Italy in what we hope is a timely repeat of her 2023 article in The Conversation.

25 July 2025: How much would it really cost to nationalize the water industry?: Environment secretary Steve Reed claims: "The reason that nationalisation wasn't included [as an option for Sir Jon Cunliffe's report to consider] is because, first of all, it would cost £100bn, according to figures produced by my department. That money would have to be taken away from the NHS and from schools, to be given to the people who have polluted our rivers". Two things wrong here. First, the figure is made up by Reed's own department; independent estimates, such as this one by economist Richard Murphy, suggest the actual cost could be as little as zero. Second, the disingenuous claim that "the money would have to be taken away from the NHS and from schools": it might, for example, be taken away from the blank cheque the government has written for HS2, defence, or other places.

25 July 2025: The Cunliffe report proves it: water must be nationalised: More negative reaction to the Cunliffe report from Andrew Fisher, Former executive director of policy at the Labour Party, who argues privatization means "nationalize the losses, privatize the profits."

24 July 2025: Cumbrian River Restoration in the running for global award: The Cumbrian River Restoration Partnership Programme – led by the Environment Agency and Natural England – has been named a finalist in the prestigious Thiess International Riverprize Awards. The Programme has restored nearly 100km of rivers and over 150 hectares of floodplain across the Eden, Derwent and Kent catchments.

24 July 2025: Severn's Maisemore Weir gives cause for concern: A 19th-century weir on the River Severn is showing signs of wear and tear.

24 July 2025: Ilford Arrival opens up the River Roding once more: A new regeneration scheme is promising to open up public access to one of London's least known and least accessible rivers, the Roding.

24 July 2025: Wyescapes points the way to sustainable farming: Also in the news this week, the Herefordshire Wyescapes scheme, a collaboration with farmers "to restore a nature-rich mosaic of habitats, improve river health, and naturally reduce the impact of floods and drought, whilst producing food sustainably on more climate-resilient farms". To date, it's involved 49 farms, 80km of river, and 5125 hectares of land.

23 July 2025: Pond campaigners are positive about the Cunliffe report: While most attention at the moment is focused on dirty rivers, Freshwater Habitats Trust has welcomed hints in the Cunliffe report that small waters, such as ponds and lakes, are crucial for freshwater biodiversity.

23 July 2025: Drinking to the Medway... or maybe drinking the Medway?: ITV has a short video report on The River Medway Pilgrimage, organized by the Friends of the Medway.

23 July 2025: Abingdon Reservoir has survived an attempted judicial review: The proposed Thames Water reservoir near Abingdon, which is estimated to be the size of Gatwick Airport, moved a step nearer to being built this week after a legal challenge failed.

23 July 2025: Thames Water’s flawed megaproject moves forward unchecked: GARD, who've been fighting the Abingdon mega-reservoir for years, continue to highlight flood risks and potential environmental damage.

23 July 2025: Eel speed ahead in the South Downs National Park: New fish passes and brushes are being added in the South Downs to make migration easier for European eels.

21 July 2025: Instant fines for sewage pumpers: The I welcomes 2026 government plans to monitor sewage discharges and fine dumpers in real time.

14 July 2025: East London outdoor swimming spot set for a makeover: Time Out reports on plans to upgrade West Reservoir Centre in Stoke Newington.

21 July 2025: Water Commission fails to propose bold reform: River Action savages Cunliffe report: James Wallace of River Action has published a stinging critique of Jon Cunliffe's water commission report, calling out seven major omissions: "While the report acknowledges the depth of the crisis, it ultimately offers 'the illusion of change – not real change.'"

21 July 2025: Cunliffe report: a reset button for our broken water system: The publication of Sir Jon Cunliffe's report into the very broken water industry is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put things right. But it's worth remembering two things. First, renationalization of the water industry (which many people consider the fundamental starting point for meaningful reform) wasn't even in Cunliffe's remit. Second, this is only an advisory report: a set of observations and recommendations that the government might or might not accept. Even if they're implemented, it will be years before any of the reforms Cunliffe suggests trickle through into cleaner rivers. But we need to make sure the pressure for change is not lost.

20 July 2025: Rivers are facing a perfect storm: Erratic heavy rainfalls, sewage overflows, high water temperatures, low oxygen levels, algal blooms, and dwindling flows are a recipe for river disaster, reports Sky News.

20 July 2025: Government reveals £104bn river plans: Just before the Independent Water Commission's landmark review this week, the government has announced how it plans to tackle Britain's dysfunctional water system.

19 July 2025: Drought concerns mount as Midlands joins the club: Since the National Drought Group last met on 5 June, the situation has deteriorated, with further areas, including the West and East Midlands, now officially in drought and recently three more areas moved into prolonged dry weather status (Lincs and Northants, East Anglia, and Thames area). A hosepipe ban is set to be introduced from 22nd July by Thames Water following a period of prolonged dry weather in the area.

18 July 2025: Serious water pollution incidents rise by 60 percent in just one year: Pollution incidents were up by 60 percent in 2024 due to "persistent underinvestment in new infrastructure, poor asset maintenance, and reduced resilience due to the impacts of climate change", according to the Environment Agency.

18 July 2025: Drought concerns force anglers to hang up their rods: Angling groups have stopped fishing on the River Trent due to growing concerns about fish health caused by low oxygen levels, themselves caused by recent hot weather and drought.

18 July 2025: Ofwat for the chop?: The I reports that Ofwat, the toothless water company regulator, is set to be scrapped in the wake of mass public outrage over river pollution.

18 July 2025: How does drought impact freshwater biodiversity?: Freshwater Habitats Trust explores how freshwater life can survive periods of drought: "Many freshwater plants and animals can survive, or even need, periods of drought. While some – like fish – need water all the time, many freshwater species have lifecycles that are well adapted to periods of drying out."

18 July 2025: Dear Keir Starmer and Steve Reed... We demand an urgent end to the sewage scandal: Surfers Against Sewage publishes an open letter to the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for the Environment.

18 July 2025: Are firefighters right about rivers?: A strong message to swimmers and paddle boarders from Derbyshire Fire service: "If you want to enjoy a hobby such as paddle boarding, join a club where you can paddle board in a safe environment. And if you are tempted to cool down in our rivers—keep out and keep away from weirs". Given that people always have and always will swim in inland waters, perhaps joining the call for more properly designated bathing waters would be more helpful?

17 July 2025: The great water crisis of 2025: George Monbiot attacks government failure to renationalize our water.

17 July 2025: Councillors clash over Fen flooding: Cambridgeshire County Councillors are asking central government for more funds to stop flooding, but opinions differ on the merits of dredging.

15 July 2025: Polluted Lugg causes concern: Herefordshire's River Lugg is among the most polluted with toxic biocides (fungicides, herbicides, and insecticides), according to data from Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL) and the Rivers Trust.

15 July 2025: Sea lampreys thrive in the River Dee: Sea lampreys are doing well in North Wales, thanks to the Dee River project, led by Natural Resources Wales, which removed part of Erbistock weir, on the River Dee last year.

15 July 2025: Potato crops and salmon under threat from Britain's dried-up rivers: Miserable river levels are making life hard for farmers and fish.

15 July 2025: Restoring wetlands could save UK billions, says WWT:As international delegates gear up for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands COP15 in Zimbabwe this July, a major new report is warning one fifth of the world's wetlands could vanish by 2050.

14 July 2025: State of UK Climate Report: Extreme weather is the new normal: The latest State of the Climate report notes that "extreme weather events are to be expected each year as an integral part of the UK's climate".

13 July 2025: Big jump makes a splash in Europe: Our friends at the European River Network have seen another successful Big Jump event this year, with around 80 events in 8 countries "demonstrating their commitment to bringing Europe’s rivers back to life". But not much action in Britain.

12 July 2025: Floods Are Inevitable. Catastrophe Is Not.: Building on floodplains is just as much a concern in the United States, as this op-ed piece in The New York Times, published in in the wake of catastrophic Texas floods, makes clear.

12 July 2025: How can we stop plastic from wrecking the oceans?: Over at Surfers Against Sewage, Ruby Free explores the causes and effects of plastic pollution and what we can do about it.

12 July 2025: South East rivers caught in a pollution perfect storm: Lack of rainfall is increasing the concentration of pollutants in southern rivers to dangerous levels, according to The Angling Trust.

12 July 2025: Can London's rivers be swimmable within 10 years?: A BBC article from earlier this year explores how likely it is that wild swimmers will be taking to rivers like the Roding, a tributary of the Thames, anytime soon.

12 July 2025: Experts call for hosepipe bans as reservoir levels plunge: It's time to take action, as reservoirs plunge to their lowest level in a decade, say hydrologists, farmers, and others.

11 July 2025: What's the forever chemical TFA doing in the UK’s rivers?: Daniel Drage from the University of Birmingham looks at the risks posed by a persistent chemical called trifluoroacetic acid (TFA).

11 July 2025: Rivers choose their path based on erosion, a discovery that could transform flood planning and restoration: Harrison Tasoff from UC Santa Barbara explains how geographers at the university recently mapped the thread dynamics along 84 rivers with 36 years of global satellite imagery... and what we can learn from the results.

10 July 2025: How the "filthy" River Emscher came back to life: The Guardian describes how one of the dirtiest rivers in Europe came back from the dead.

10 July 2025: How gardeners can help rivers: The Belfast News explores handy tips from the River Trust.

10 July 2025: Blue-green algae threatens Lough Neagh: Over in Northern Ireland, concerns mount over algal blooms. [Paid article.]

3 July 2025: New ponds bring rare plants back to Northamptonshire farmland: Northamptonshire farmers have given local wildlife a major boost, by creating new ponds around Pitsford reservoir. Local landowners worked with Freshwater Habitats Trust, Anglian Water and the Environment Agency on the initiative, which has increased the number of wetland plant species across the whole landscape by nearly a quarter and more than doubled the number of uncommon plant species in just two years.

3 July 2025: Buglife fight against Tilbury 3: The invertebrates' best friends, Buglife, are stepping up their campaign against expansion of Tilbury docks, which they say is "home to nearly, 1,200 species of invertebrate, including an incredible 185 of conservation concern".

5 July 2025: Hector swims three lakes for SAS: Intrepid open-water Olympic swimmer Hector Pardoe will be swimming Loch Lomond in Scotland, Windermere in England, and Lake Bala in Wales back-to-back in under 24 hours (a total of 34.5 miles) to raise money for Surfers Against Sewage.

5 July 2025: Beavers beat drought campaigners say: The Eastern Daily Press reports on how beaver reintroduction can be a win-win for landscapes threatened by both floods and drought.

5 July 2025: Swimming in the Seine once again!: A century-long ban on swimming in the great Parisian river has been partly reversed.

4 July 2025: Henley River and Rowing Museum to close: We've often reported news from the RRM in Henley, and it's sad to hear that the project will be closing this September due to financial pressures running the huge building.

4 July 2025: Biocide chemicals in rivers could power superbugs: Widespread use of antibacterial chemicals could spark the rise of superbugs, according to new research reported by The I.

4 July 2025: Major fish kill in the River Lew: The Environment Agency is investigating the death of at least 90 fish in the Lew near Okehampton, Devon following a suspected chemical spill.

3 July 2025: Can trees save salmon in the River Dee: Will "Save the Spring", a controversial tree planting and river restoration scheme in Scotland, help the decline of the salmon?

3 July 2025: Bad policing is discouraging the right to protest: Greenpeace research reveals that many people are being arrested at protests, but just 3 percent are charged: "These numbers support the belief, widespread amongst activists and protesters, that the police are abusing this offence and other anti-protest laws to remove and intimidate peaceful protesters".

3 July 2025: Thames Water can't cope with sewage: Research from the Oxford Rivers Project shows 181 of Thames Water's sewage treatment works (over 51%) can't handle the volume of sewage they receive.

3 July 2025: Flooding Along the Uruguay and Ibicui Rivers seen from space: It used to be said that you could see only two things from space: the Great Wall of China and the burning rainforests. Today, you can see your house on Google Earth... and thanks to NASA, you can also see spectacular flooding in Brazil this week.

2 July 2025: £8 billion boost to flood defence?: The government is loudly trumpeting what it calls "the largest flood defence investment programme in history", but critical readers will be asking how that's measured against a background of massive recent cuts to the Environment Agency's budget, how it factors in the increasing problem of climate change, and how it squares with the continuing rash rush to develop housing in the wrong places (a 2024 survey by Allianz revealed 7,000 new homes are planned for areas at highest risk of flooding).

1 July 2025: Photographer to recreate childhood river trip in dad's canoe: Photographer Ed Smith is making a spectacular journey down the 98-mile (158km) River Spey.

1 July 2025: Revealed for National Marine Week: seven secrets of our amazing seabeds and three ways to help save them: As a taster of National Marine Week later in July, the Wildlife Trusts reminds us that half of marine habitats are deteriorating and only 29% of estuaries and coastal bodies are in good ecological condition.

June 2025

30 June 2025: Does the Environment Agency's farm inspection budget boost really stack up?: Widely reported and welcome news that Environment Agency "farm inspections [are] increasing by around 50%" doesn't really stand up to scrutiny if you put it in context. Back in 2023, Dr Richard Benwell of Wildlife and Countryside Link told parliament that "The Environment Agency has seen cuts of 60 per cent in funding from 2010 to 2019; Natural England cuts are more like 70 per cent", while a 2019 report by Unchecked noted that EA prosecutions fell by 80 between 2009/10 and 2016/17. So "increases" are, at best, are only a reversal or partial reversal of previous cuts.

23 June 2025: River Action granted permission to proceed with legal challenge against Ofwat: The intrepid campaigners at River Action are taking Ofwat to court to make sure the right people pay for the historic neglect of water infrastructure.

June 2025

29 June 2025: Celebrating Trout in the Town in Keighley: This year's Trout in the Town Conclave (a national event, beginning on Wednesday 1 July), organized by the River Worth Friends, celebrates urban rivers with talks, walks, and workshops.

29 June 2025: Salmon farm activists intimidated by spying: Another tale of intrusive surveillance being used to bully eco activists.

29 June 2025: Sewage spills are blighting British shellfish: The I reports on how sewage pollution is causing a major economic headache for producers of oysters and mussels.

29 June 2025: Forgetting the world in a Canadian canoe: Rivers help us forget the everyday dross of the world, as one FT journalist found out on a 12-day canoeing vacation in Manitoba.

28 June 2025: River Severn sinking under sewage: Worcester News reports on an illuminating, four-year water-quality project by angler Glyn Marshall.

28 June 2025: Killing the great shark myth: On the 50th anniversay of Jaws, James Ashworth explains why the iconic film got so much wrong about the fish we so wrongly love to fear.

28 June 2025: Urban junk is blighting the Biss: In Trowbridge, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust is battling a rash of shopping trolleys, traffic signs, and other junk in the River Bliss.

27 June 2025: Pakistan must protect rivers with more sustainable energy: Ubaid Sahil explores how community-powered renewables can provide energy with less environmental impact on people, rivers and ecosystems.

24 June 2025: Environment Agency shines spotlight on swimming through sewage: Swimmers should check water quality before taking the plunge, according to the Environment Agency.

24 June 2025: River pollution suffocating the sea, campaigners say: Why most Welsh rivers are failing water quality targets due to nutrient pollution from farms.

23 June 2025: Solar canoes help to power a cleaner Amazon: The New York Times reports on Indigenous people in the Ecuadorean Amazon who are switching from diesel to solar power.

23 June 2025: Beaver activists court controversy with unofficial releases: The BBC interviews supporters and opponents of direct action to reintroduce beavers ahead of the official reintroduction programme.

23 June 2025: Helping Southampton salmon reach the sea: A new project is exploring ways to improve salmon passage along the lower River Itchen.

22 June 2025: How your old clothes are wrecking rivers... in Ghana: Sadly, offshoring pollution is still a thing. Greenpeace explores how waste clothes exported from the west are clogging up areas like the Densu river wetlands in Ghana.

20 June 2025: Surging abstraction pushes rivers to breaking point: The Guardian reports new research by Watershed Investigations showing a 76% rise in water taken from rivers and lakes for industrial or public consumption in just two decades.

20 June 2025: Call for smart water meters and hosepipe bans: The Environment Agency has warned England alone will be short of 6 billion litres of water a day by 2050. Living in a warming world means using water more frugally, but when exactly do we plan to make a start?

19 June 2025: Why we can't afford to lose the last high-quality freshwaters: Prioritizing the most wildlife-rich, unpolluted habitats is the key to reversing the decline in freshwater biodiversity, argues the Freshwater Habitats Trust.

19 June 2025: Just three years to limit warming to 1.5°C: How likely is it that we'll meet the latest global warming deadline?

19 June 2025: Water firm fines will be reinvested in pollution busting after all: The government has apparently listened to calls for sewage spill fines to be used for cleaning up waterways.

19 June 2025: Urban Europeans embrace wild swimming: The Guardian reports on the popularity of wild swimming in Paris, Oslo, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.

18 June 2025: Hampshire campaigners want river rights: Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust has joined forces with Winchester city campaigners to call for more legal rights for rivers like the Itchen and Test.

18 June 2025: Berliners on a swimming Spree: Fed up with a century-long ban, urban Berliners are keen to reclaim their River Spree for wild swimming.

18 June 2025: River Action celebrates legal victory over polluting farms: Founder Charles Watson reports on the group's ongoing efforts to tackle polluting poultry units.

17 June 2025: BGS research highlights pesticide risks to aquatic life: New research from the British Geological Survey reveals that modern pesticides used in agriculture (such as propiconazole) and veterinary medicines (such as fipronil) have been found for the first time in English rivers. Their findings are based on studies of the River Tone in Somerset and the River Wensum in Norfolk.

15 June 2025: Plant joins Bewdley pollution busters: Rock star Robert Plant was among protesters drawing attention to pollution in the River Severn this week.

15 June 2025: Are Lancashire's rivers the most polluted in England?: Lancashire Wildlife Trust declared the Irwell and the River Darwen two of the worst sewage dumping grounds in England. Has anything changed?

15 June 2025: New website for managing nutrient load in Wales: A new website has been launched to showcase how a collection of organisations in West Wales are working together to restore the health of its rivers—and how people across the region can get involved.

12 June 2025: River research reveals forever chemicals: Alarming new findings show "forever chemicals" (ones that don't break down) in all but one of the UK's rivers.

12 June 2025: Let's buy Ocean Lake!: The Harold Dean Charity has begun a new campaign, 'More than a Drop in the Ocean', to secure the future of Ocean Lake in East Anglia.

12 June 2025: Studying atmospheric rivers from space with NASA: NASA's Atmospheric Rivers website explains how its Earth-observing satellites can help scientists identify atmospheric rivers (elongated corridors of concentrated moisture transport that occur in the lower atmosphere), which enables studies of climate change, water management, and weather.

14 June 2025: How the Anglers Trust built its river monitoring network: An insightful article from Jed Thomas and International Environmental Technology looks at the Water Quality Monitoring Network (WQMN).

14 June 2025: Artists highlight River Wye pollution: A group of artists working with campaign partnership Save the Wye are holding a new exhibition to flag up pollution in the iconic cross-border river.

14 June 2025: Planning laws could boost ponds: Government planning reforms are attracting a lot of criticism, but one planned change could be good news for the freshwater environment.

13 June 2025: Working in partnership to improve the River Mimram : Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust has appointed Heidi Mansell as the new Chalk Rivers and Farm Advisory Officer to lead crucial efforts to restore and protect the River Mimram—one of Hertfordshire's rare and precious chalk streams..

12 June 2025: Celebrating rivers in Herts and Middlesex: The first ever Herts and Middlesex Rivers Week has been declared a resounding success!

12 June 2025: Shrewsbury paddlers bust the trash: How a group of 30 determined paddleboarders have been cleaning up traffic cones, car tyres, plastic chairs and fishing gear.

11 June 2025: Labour's war on the environment continues with Defra cuts: Concerns are mounting that momentum for cleaning up rivers may be lost with huge government cuts to its environment department, Defra.

11 June 2025: Down by the river: a meditation on mental health: A photographer captures the pure joy of loving and living with rivers.

10 June 2025: Are real-time sewage alerts normalizing CSO pollution?: Southern Water invites us to "check our storm overflow reporting service before you head to the shore" in case you run up against a sudden sewage discharge. There's no question services like this are handy for swimmers and surfers, but, water companies, they are not a substitute for cleaning up your act.

10 June 2025: What to do with sewage slude?: Growing public anger at sewage discharges is leaving water companies in a panic, Greenpeace reports.

9 June 2025: Landast captures a river mystery: Rivers don't always obey the "laws" of hydrology, as this intruiging snap from the Landsat Earth-mapping satellite reveals.

9 June 2025: England's nature-bursting wetlands are at risk: WWT explains why the Government's Planning Bill is a serious threat to some of our most precious habitats.

7 June 2025: SAS People versus Plastics Protest: A date for your diary: Surfers Against Sewage is coordinating a series of protests and positive actions against plastic pollution on Saturday 19 July.

5 June 2025: How we can make water from sewage: Making clean water from treated wastewater more efficiently is the future, and here's how it's being done in California.

5 June 2025: Irish anglers beware of Pacific pink salmon: Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI) is asking anglers to report sightings of the invasive Pacific salmon, which threatens native salmon and sea trout.

5 June 2025: Drought still threatens despite recent rain: It's been the "driest March, April and May since 1893" according to the National Drought Group, meeting again this week, and keeping a beady eye on the weather.

5 June 2025: Water boss bonuses banned: Good news that bosses at six big water firms won't be collecting bonuses, but they'll still be picking up fat-cat salaries, and it may be largely a cosmetic/PR gesture.

5 June 2025: In defence of the water industry's privatisation: We love to bring you a diversity of views, so here's Emma Revell, writing in Conservative Home, offering a dubious defence of market forces.

4 June 2025: River Breamish unleashed!: After centuries trapped in an artificial "straitjacket", the River Breamish at Harehope in Northumberland will be allowed to return to a naturally meandering form.

4 June 2025: Eel project sees nearly 23,000 released into river: Around 23,000 glass eels have been transferred from the River Severn into the chalk stream Kennet in Berkshire for a research project to see if their numbers can be increased.

4 June 2025: Beavering back to Wales: The BBC offers a tantalizing clip of a beaver "wild swimming" in Wales.

4 June 2025: How rivers are worsening climate change: Not their fault, of course, but new research shows how stored carbon is returning to the atmosphere via rivers.

3 June 2025: Damning review of the failing water industry: The independent Water Commission has largely stated the obvious in a damning review of our utterly broken water system, citing "deep-rooted, systemic and interlocking failures over the years".

3 June 2025: Water Commission review neglects ponds: The independent Water Commission's new report neglects the vital importance of small water bodies, such as ponds, according to the Freshwater Habitats Trust.

3 June 2025: Straitgate victory celebrated: A short BBC summary of the determined East Devon campaign to see off Straitgate Quarry, which was a 20-year+ battle, not a "10-year battle" as reported here.

1 June 2025: Muddy saltmarshes have vital climate role: Saltmarshes are net 'sinks' of carbon dioxide, according to pioneering research led by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) using data collected from the Ribble Estuary in Lancashire.

1 June 2025: Intrepid volunteers help the River Soar to soar!: Well done to paddling pollution busters in Leicestershire who pulled 60 bags of trash from Leicestershire's River Soar as part of the 2025 Big Paddle Cleanup.

May 2025

31 May 2025: Pirates against poo successfully stir the s*it!: Responding to Captain Baldie and the pirates who took to East Anglia's rivers in a recent pollution protest, the Environment Agency claims its confident of water quality improvements.

30 May 2025: Somerset eels get a passport to freedom: New eel passes on the Rivers Parrett and Brue will help eels swim to and from their breeding grounds in the Sargasso Sea.

30 May 2025: London Rivers Week: It's the ninth year of London Rivers Week, a "week-long annual campaign inspiring the public to celebrate all of London’s rivers and the many projects taking place to protect them. All events are FREE and will include guided walks, talks and cultural events". Check out the Calendar of Events on Thames 21's website.

30 May 2025: Big River Watch report from the Rivers Trust: In an amazing team effort, 3,909 people took part and submitted 2,261 surveys, spotting lots of wildlife but unfortunately also lots of pollution.

30 May 2025: How climate change is making rivers more salty: A new study of the Banladesh Delt by Mo Hoque at the University of Portsmouth and colleagues looks at how our changing climate is increasing salinity, with potentially devastating consequences for water security and agriculture.

29 May 2025: Thames Water fine will not be spent on water improvements: Lucy Heath keeps up the pressure on Steve Reed, who has resisted calls to use Thames Water's recent fine on tackling pollution.

29 May 2025: Plans for new reservoirs announced: More "build build build" rhetoric from the government, but can it deliver safe water without wrecking the environment?

29 May 2025: Clean up your act, Thames Water, say ARK: Action for the River Kennet have demanded that Thames Water spends its recent £122.7m fine cleaning up rivers.

29 May 2025: The chemical cocktail seeping into our rivers: Phoebe Watson, writing in The Guardian, reports on Prof Alistair Boxall's efforts to understand pollution in York's River Foss.

28 May 2025: River Gade goes back for the future: The Environment Agency, working with Affinity Water, Dacorum Borough Council and contractors BAM Nuttall, has finished restoration of the Gade in Hertfordshire.

28 May 2025: Volunteers get a boost in the Lower Derwent Valley: Natural England reports on progress with the construction of Lower Derwent Valley NNR's new volunteer, community and nature recovery science hub.

22 May 2025: Headstart: a new approach to cleaning up Britain's river systems: The Freshwater Habitats Trust has suggested an innovative way of tackling river pollution. According to CEO Jeremy Biggs: “When we talk about cleaning up our water system, people usually think of pollution in big rivers. But our evidence shows that cleaning up small catchments at the top of the river network could transform the water environment. Although they are individually small, headwater streams make up more than 70% of Britain’s river network, and their catchments cover more than half of England and Wales. Because they are small, headwater catchments face fewer pollution sources and are easier to manage. Crucially, these catchments respond quickly to restoration. This means we can achieve results within years rather than decades."

24 May 2025: Canoeists launch 2025 Big Paddle Cleanup!: Thousands of paddling volunteers will be helping Paddle UK to bust litter from rivers this week. In last year's paddle, "7,398 hours were spent... filling 1,888 sacks with rubbish, including "7,809 plastic bottles, 2,374 glass bottles, 4,735 cans and 10,613 plastic food wrappers, plus many unusual items".

23 May 2025: UK Government risks sending nature into freefall: RSPB warns that planning reforms are a licence to kill nature. Despite continued anti-nature rhetoric, blaming 'newts and bats' for stalled development, the Government’s own Impact Assessment Report found that current nature protections were not 'blockers' to building. Recent research from The Wildlife Trust supports this too, showing that the species blamed by the Government factor into just 3% of planning appeal decisions

20 May 2025: Have you seen ratty?: Or voley, more like. West Cumbria Rivers Trust are asking for help in tracking down threatened water voles as part of their Mink Free Rivers project.

20 May 2025: How a Water Conservation Idea Won Over Oklahoma Farmers: Keeping cattle out of streams proved a simple way to shift Horse Creek from a list of most polluted waterways.

20 May 2025: At last, water firms facing criminal probes over sewage: The I reports on more action to tackle water polluters.

20 May 2025: Coastlines will crumble even if we meet climate targets: Climate change is now baked in, researchers point out, even if we meet the increasingly dubious target of limiting world warming to 1.5 degrees.

18 May 2025: Water voles are almost extinct - could glitter save them?: Sparkly poo offers a cunning way to track cuddly threatened riverbank critters.

17 May 2025: Thousands join Surfers Against Sewage 'Paddle out Protest' for clean water: SAS have organized a mass action to protest against polluted bathing waters.

17 May 2025: Phil Williams: Thinking about rivers and dams: A short interview with one of the founders of the International Rivers Network (now International Rivers).

16 May 2025: Oxford's £176 million flood defence scheme approved: The huge new Oxford Flood Alleviation scheme has gained government approval.

16 May 2025: Basingstoke council grants rivers "human rights": Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council has voted to grant rivers and chalk streams new rights, including the right to flow and remain clean.

16 May 2025: Oxford University re-maps the world's rivers: Oxford researchers have developed a new river-mapping tool called Global RIver Topology (GRIT), covering a total length of 19.6 million km, which aims to show the world's rivers (and canals) in their full complexity. It should lead to better hydrological modeling, flood forecasting, and water management.

15 May 2025: West Country water lovers urged to lend a hand to bathing waters: In a rather muddled press release, the Environment Agency vaguely asks for help in designating more bathing waters—but there's a distinct lack of dash, determination, and ambition.

15 May 2025: New study confirms democracies outsource their pollution: No surprise at all: a new study of 161 countries over several decades has confirmed that democracies outsource more greenhouse emissions than autocratic regimes.

12 May 2025: Last chance to apply for Wessex Water Grants!: Green groups in the Wessex region (including community river groups) still have a week or so to apply for grants from Wessex Water Foundation's Environment Fund (closing date 19 May 2025).

10 May 2025: Rivers are being drugged to death: A new study by McGill University researchers has found 8500 tonnes of antibiotics ends up in the world's 6 million km of rivers each year.

10 May 2025: Fixing England's water isn't just the right thing to do—it can be the start of Labour's fightback: Clive Lewis argues that public ownership of water is central to real reform of politics.

9 May 2025: Why shouldn't rivers have rights?: Nature writer Robert Macfarlane has turned his attention to the plight of rivers around the world—and those closer to home—in a new book.

9 May 2025: 6000 tyres pulled from the River Ogmore: In one of the UK's biggest ever community river cleans, a frightening pile of old tyres has been pulled from the Ogmore in Brigend. Well done to Merthyr Mawr Women's Institute, Cardiff Rivers, and other groups who made it happen. Read more.

8 May 2025: How your dog is harming the river you love: Writing in The I, Clare Wilson offers simple tips for minimizing canine impacts on freshwater wildlife.

7 May 2025: Driest start to spring in 69 years across England: Are we heading for a drought? The Environment Agency is already floating the possibility. There was a meeting of the National Drought Group on 7 May and the current message is "more needed to be done to cut leakage and help customers use water more wisely".

7 May 2025: Building boardwalks: how volunteers can be a powerful voice for nature's recovery: An inspiring story from the Freshwater Habitats Trust about how more thoughtful access can help improve the biodiversity of a threatened site by keeping people in the right place.

7 May 2025: 5 endangered marine animals that need protecting in the UK: The Marine Conservation Society enlightens us about their work to protect the flapper skate, the European sturgeon, the angel shark, the European eel, and the pink sea fan.

3 May 2025: Fall in wild swimming as pollution takes a toll: The I Paper reports a big decline in wild swimming – 100,000 fewer people taking to the water – and fingers pollution as the culprit.

1 May 2025: WWT leaves X/Twitter: The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust has announced its departure from the increasingly toxic social media site.

April 2025

30 April 2025: UK woefully underprepared for climate change: The Climate Change Committe's latest report is scathing, ranking the UK governments's efforts as "... limited... piecemeal and disjointed... too slow... stalled, or ... in the wrong direction... [and] ineffective".

30 April 2025: Bugs Matter survey shows ongoing decline in UK flying insects: Worrying news indeed from Buglife: "The latest data shows that the number of flying insects sampled on vehicle number plates, across the UK, has fallen by a staggering 63% since 2021".

22 April 2025: Surge in swimmers falling ill from polluted UK waters: This story from The Independent sounds like a rollback to the bad old days of the 1990s...

24 April 2025: Polluting water bosses face up to two years in prison: The Environment Agency is talking tough about “New measures [that] will force water companies to end their disgraceful behaviour and clean up our rivers, lakes and seas for good”. We'll see how that pans out in practice..

28 April 2025: Eco Albania scoop the Goldman Prize for river activism: Two Albanian activists, Besjana Guri and Olsi Nika, have won the 2025 Goldman Prize for their campaign to protect the wild Vjosa River from a hydropower dam.

17 April 2025: Birmingham volunteers learn to test water quality: Dr James White from the University of Birmingham is empowering volunteers to check the health of their local rivers and streams.

February 2025

18 February 2025: Biodiversity in England's rivers improved as metal pollution reduced: Good news from the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH). Their new study of 1457 sites between 1989 and and 2018 has found: "An improvement in freshwater biodiversity in England's rivers was linked to reductions in pollution of zinc and copper, largely due to the decline of coal burning and heavy industry".

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