Rivers At Risk

Water company sewage pollution is one of the main reasons for failing health of rivers due to illegal sewage dumping, a lack of enforcement and poor water company planning.

Sewage works inside the National Parks are spilling sewage for twice as long as outside National Parks. Inside National Parks the average number of hours spilling from a single sewer overflow was 549 – more than double the average from outside (266 hours). In 2024, there were 254,808 hours sewage spilling into sensitive National Park rivers. This outrageous level of sewage reflects aging and poorly maintained sewage infrastructure, that is ill-designed and undersized to cope with actual resident and visitor populations. Many rural communities within National Parks are below the threshold resident population size where more than basic sewage treatment is legally required, meaning that sewage treatment technologies that are standard elsewhere are not legally required inside National Parks. 

Agricultural pollution of waterways is a key pressure, particularly for coastal National Parks like the Broads and Pembrokeshire which sit downstream of intensively and industrially farmed areas. The management of slurry stores and the spreading of manures and fertilisers, pesticides use of veterinary medicine and rural activities such as shooting contribute significantly to river pollution. Without greater regulation as well as support and incentives for farmers to change rural land management practices, the problem will continue to persist. 

As sewage treatment works are old and undersized, as they often are in rural areas of National Parks, they can’t deal with the increased demands due to tourism meaning untreated sewage is often dumped into the water.

The water is then not only contaminated with sewage but also antidepressants, anticonvulsants, antimicrobials, anti-inflammatory substances, lipid regulators and diabetes treatments. High levels of chemical pollution like these threaten fish, invertebrates and algae and can also threaten human health.

Water abstraction is the removal of water from a natural source for a variety of uses such as drinking water.

When too much water is removed from a river the flow rate slows leading to more silt building up and degrading vital habitats for species, pollutants become more concentrated and when combined with the effects of climate change water temperatures increase and become unsuitable for the wildlife in the water.