17 August 2006
River quality in the British Isles has improved significantly in the past few years, according to new figures.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has today released its river water quality indicator for sustainable development report for 2005, which reveals that in England 71 per cent of river length was of good biological quality last year – a four per cent increase on 2000's figures.
When compared with figures from 1990, English rivers have improved by 11 per cent in water quality.
Rivers in Wales, however, only saw a slight improvement – rising from 79 per cent in 2000 to 80 per cent last year. Despite the only small rise in the past few years, the quality of Welsh river water still remains significantly higher than that of England or Northern Ireland where 56 per cent of monitored river length was of good quality last year.
This was the only area of the UK in which water quality was worse last year than it had been in 2000 – seeing a five per cent fall.
In Scotland, there was no change with 87 per cent of its water lengths being of good biological quality on both occasions – however, the survey undertakers warn that comparisons between river water in this country and the rest of the UK must be treated with caution because the data is accumulated in a different way.
The river water quality indicator forms part of the government's sustainable development indicators and also supports the UK Government Strategy's Securing the future and the UK Framework for Sustainable Development's One future – different paths.
See how much you could save on your water bill with uSwitch.com.
© 2008 Adfero Ltd
Content for the uSwitch.com market news service is provided by a third party, Adfero Ltd. Whilst uSwitch.com makes reasonable efforts to check the reliability of this content, uSwitch.com does not guarantee the accuracy thereof or endorse the views or opinions given by Adfero Ltd, unless expressly stated otherwise.