The Rivers Trust has published its State of Our Rivers 2024 Report – and the NGO is warning that “our rivers are in a desperate state of affairs” and “things haven’t improved" since its last report in 2021.

The report says that the latest health assessments show that still none of England’s river stretches are in good or high overall health:

• 0% are in good overall status
• 0% are in high overall status
• 23% are classed as in poor or bad overall status
• 85% of river stretches fall below good ecological standards; only 15% achieve good or above ecological health status

The water environment in England is assessed by the Environment Agency in accordance with the Water Framework Directive (WFD) – legislation introduced and still in force from when the UK was a member of the European Union.

England’s WFD data is published every three years and according to The Rivers Trust the most recent results do not paint a positive picture The report says:

“Very little has changed – let alone improved – since the last data from 2019. Of the 3553 river stretches we have data for, just 151, stretches of river got better and moved up an ecological standard, and 158 actually got worse. Worryingly, river sampling has also decreased, with nearly 6% fewer river stretches receiving health classifications compared to 2019.”

“Poor regulation and enforcement across several sectors are making things worse"

The report says that pressures on our rivers are being made worse by a number of factors, including poor regulation and enforcement. The report states:

“Poor regulation and enforcement across several sectors are making things worse. England’s sewerage system is not currently fit for purpose; high levels of nutrients in treated discharges and untreated storm overflows are causing big problems. Over the last few decades, Ofwat – the body responsible for financial regulation of England’s water and sewerage industry – have failed to ensure that water companies invested sufficiently to upgrade or even maintain water infrastructure. Now, delivering the necessary improvements at speed and scale to safeguard our rivers is a massive task.

“More regulation and enforcement are also needed from the Environment Agency (EA), whose enforcement activities make sure environmental rules are followed. However, government has cut EA’s environmental protection budget in half over the last 10 years. This means that the EA has failed to monitor, investigate pollution incidents and enforce legislation and rules designed to protect our water environment. This has included instructing EA staff not to attend lower-level pollution incidents, and requiring water companies to self-monitor and self–report on their own activities. While EA have recently hired new water and agriculture inspection staff and begun to increase water monitoring again, government funding is still well below historical levels. EA budgets need restoring, and government must provide good strategic direction for water regulation with a better balance between economic considerations and the environment.“

Limitations to the way chemicals are currently regulated

The report goes on to point out that there are also limitations to the way chemicals are currently regulated, commenting:

“At the moment, regulatory monitoring only addresses around 50 chemicals – some of which were banned years ago. Yet there are hundreds of chemicals found in our rivers, many of which are currently used, and which are not regulated the same way even though there are concerns about their impact. There is also evidence that the UK is falling behind the EU in terms of regulating and authorising chemicals more generally. With toxic chemicals building up in our rivers and posing risks for nature and, potentially, public health, it is critical that government creates a bold and ambitious chemicals strategy that is fit for purpose. The new model for registering chemicals in the UK must, as a minimum, align with the EU’s REACH scheme and follow its restrictions as standard. “

Reduced sampling for water quality monitoring has resulted in data and knowledge gaps

The Rivers Trust also warns in the report that reduced sampling for water quality monitoring has resulted in data and knowledge gaps – the report states:

“Over the last two decades, EA water monitoring has declined significantly. The graph below shows the total number of samples taken from rivers by EA staff each year. ↓ There’s an obvious dip during the pandemic when staff couldn’t get out to rivers, but overall we can still see a strong downward trend over time. Far fewer samples are being taken, from fewer locations – leaving large parts of our river network completely untested and vulnerable to pollution. At a time when we need more data to understand the state of our rivers, the EA are generating less and less.

“This trend is worrying. The EA's national sampling programme can tell us something about national trends in water quality, but it is not sufficient to diagnose the causes of the problems or effectively target plans for river recovery which are needed in every river catchment.“

Government needs to take range of actions

The Trust is calling on the Government to take the following actions:

Invest in fair and effective regulation and enforcement to hold polluters to account and ensure that nobody is profiting from pollution.

We need tougher regulation outlawing more polluting products, such as persistent chemicals, and we need to use our existing laws to fully enforce the polluter pays principle. Properly funding regulators and providing consistent political support for their role is essential to tackling high-profile issues like the sewage scandal and playing a leading role in the Climate and Nature emergencies. 

Mainstream nature-based solutions to build climate resilience and support nature recovery.

Nature-based solutions can be lower in carbon, and deliver multiple benefits like flood risk prevention, pollution reduction, biodiversity restoration, and community health and wellbeing, making them more valuable. Government must support efforts to break down barriers to the roll-out of large-scale nature-based solutions, by establishing strategic guidance and regulatory frameworks and standards that incentivise business and regulators to confidently work with nature. 

Support and empower communities to play a part in monitoring river health, by integrating citizen science into a collaborative monitoring framework.

We need a clear framework and reliable standards around citizen science so that this data can be trusted and used by decision-makers, leading to better management of our rivers. This doesn’t replace regulatory monitoring, but it adds better coverage, responsiveness and transparency, and can help target regulatory investigations. Support for CaSTCo could accelerate our work building the first national framework to enable communities to collect trustworthy river catchment data and share it openly. 

Enable holistic water management through catchment partnerships by increasing their funding and strengthening their mandate.

The Catchment-Based Approach partnerships are already working around the country and provide a ready-made framework for a more holistic approach to managing our rivers and their catchments. They bring key sectors together to pool resources and expertise, integrate plans and co-design solutions. Reliable and increased levels of funding, as well as a clearer mandate to convene, would accelerate their work with farmers, business and local communities and deliver even greater social and natural benefits. 

Improve join-up and integration of the many plans and regulations that affect our rivers and their catchments.

We need to take a more strategic and integrated approach that coordinates opportunities across the various water industry plans, flood plans, local nature recovery plans and catchment plans. Adopting an overall land use framework that is underpinned by nature-based solutions would help fill the gap between local and national planning.   

The Trust commented:

“We’ve heard a lot about how government wants to tackle the Climate and Nature emergencies, but we’re still not seeing enough joined-up planning and delivery at pace. 2024 is a General Election year, which provides the ideal opportunity for government to renew and accelerate its environmental ambitions. We need to see government provide the funding and political will required to enforce our current laws, move forward with long-promised strategies around chemicals and land use, and rapidly roll-out Nature-Based Solutions to build climate resilience and support nature recovery. ”

Click here to access the full report online