Energy & Climate
Rivers: too little protection
Europe’s protected areas have so far only provided limited benefit to river ecosystems, a new study shows.
27 December 2025
The Environment Agency has today (06 August) published the latest Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) Regulations (WFDR) classifications, providing information to water companies, farmers and stakeholders to see clearly where the water environment is performing well and where further action is needed.
Today’s data show that 14.3% of England’s surface waters achieved good ecological status, meeting the standards set out under the Water Framework Directive Regulations (WFDR), retained EU legislation which assesses the health of Europe’s rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwater.
All 4,658 surface water bodies were assessed against a range of standards covering wildlife, water quality and physical habitat.
The Rivers Trust warned that today’s announcement that just 14% of water bodies in England are in good ecological health ‘is deeply worrying and marks a 2% drop since 2019 revealing no progress has been made to improve the state of our rivers in the last five years’.
The charity said that the latest river monitoring data show little progress in protecting rivers, and warned that ‘risk-based monitoring is not enough to identify the issues and take necessary action’, It is calling for comprehensive monitoring of all rivers and chemicals, including the use of citizen science data.
‘In order to take action to ensure healthy, wild, natural rivers, we need to understand where the problems are. This requires consistent and comprehensive monitoring and transparent sharing of that data, and that includes risk-based monitoring of rivers and waterbodies, with a broad coverage of regular monitoring at all sites. We would like to see the Environment Agency (EA) go further, incorporating citizen science and other sources of data to get a much fuller picture of river health in order to take the necessary action.
‘While 82% of individual indicators rated ‘good’ sounds positive – almost 86% of waterbodies tested still have one indicator that is failing which means there is little chance that the overall health of the waterbody is good – so, we still have a big problem. And the EA testing is not as comprehensive as it needs to be.
‘The Rivers Trust Movement works extensively with communities and partners to monitor and restore rivers and catchments, and we share information and monitoring data from many sources through resources like our sewage map and State of Rivers report to help keep everyone informed and to identify where action is needed. We can’t do this on our own, and need the EA to keep gathering data, accompanied by strong enforcement and targeted action to boost river health.’TESSA WARDLEY
Director of Communications & Advocacy for The Rivers Trust
There are gaps in the testing that determines the Environment Agency classification of waterbodies, and they need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
Under its current data analysis methodology, sites deemed to be low risk can miss out on continued attention while an outdated list of tested chemicals means the prevalence of many emerging contaminants of concern is not accurately known.
The Rivers Trust is calling for the integrated approach to water management that was promised by the government’s water white paper, which draws together data from a diverse range of sources – from regulatory measures to citizen science and remote sensing technologies – to fill these gaps, reduce costs and environmental risks.
Shifting water management from reactive compliance to proactive resilience should be a top priority, the charity concludes.
‘These stark findings should start alarm bells ringing throughout the country. The government needs to take urgent action to turn off the chemicals that are destroying our land at the source. The scale of this crisis is sobering. Water companies must be made to take responsibility for their part, but pollution from agriculture is now one of the biggest drivers of environmental damage in UK rivers. It’s time for the government to work with farmers, providing proper support to rein in runaway use of fertilisers and pesticides, and boost nature-friendly practices.
‘The Environment Agency was right to increase the resources available for inspections and data collection, but now that we know the extent of the pollution, much more must be done to clean up our degraded rivers, lakes, estuaries and groundwater.’AMI MCCARTHY
Greenpeace UK’s head of politics
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