State of Our Rivers Report
28 September, 2021
by Rachael Halhead
The Rivers Trust, our national body, have just released The State of Our Rivers Report.
Providing data on both a local and national scale for England, the report provides us with detail to better understand the health of our rivers; highlighting their plight and how we are losing the fight to enable rivers to be key in our climate resilience.
Some of the main points are:
- Agriculture contributes towards nearly two-thirds of rivers failing to meet good status; the water sector over a half; and the urban and transport sector a quarter.
- With no significant improvements in the last 5 years our rivers are flat-lining; we need a radical rethink for rivers!
- Nature holds the key – we need real investment in nature-based solutions, at scale.
- Government must act more boldly, but business and local partnerships are critical to the solution too.
England’s rivers are seen to be pristine and yet only 14% are in good ecological health, and every one of them is failing to meet chemical standards.
Of these failing rivers, agriculture impacts nearly two thirds (2,296 river water bodies); the water sector impacts over a half (2,032 river water bodies); and a quarter is attributed to the urban and transport sector.
And pollution isn’t the only problem. Habitat destruction and abstraction are also putting pressure on the future of our rivers.
Noticed a problem on your local river in South Cumbria? Use our new Water Quality Map to record pollution incidents here
