Catchment Data Explorer: Water Body Status Classification

Published by:
Environment Agency
Last updated:
06 July 2026
Topic:
Not added
Licence:
Other Licence
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Summary

This data can be accessed from the Catchment Data Explorer: https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning.

The current health of the water environment is assessed in terms of its status. Surface waters are assessed for ecological status or potential and chemical status. Groundwaters are assessed for quantitative status and chemical status.

A range of quality elements are assessed in each water body. For a water body to achieve good status, every element assessed must be at good status or better. If one element is below its threshold for good status, then the water body’s status is classed as less than good.

Ecological status can be classed as high, good, moderate, poor, or bad. Surface water chemical status can be classed as good or fail.

Since the current plans were published in 2016 the approach to chemical status classification has changed. A more advanced and sophisticated approach to classifying the chemical status of English water bodies is being used. This helps to more accurately reflect the accumulation of some of the more persistent substances which can be underestimated by monitoring water alone.

Groundwater quantitative and chemical status can be classed as good or poor.

This data supports the Water Framework Directive river basin management plans that can be found here: https://environment.data.gov.uk/catchment-planning Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved.

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Data links

Link to the data Format File added Data preview
Waterbody classifications on Catchment Data Explorer N/A 06 July 2026 Not available
Waterbody classifications as CSV CSV 06 July 2026 Preview

Additional information

View additional metadata
Added to data.gov.uk
2026-06-22
Access contraints
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Harvest GUID
d8421893-ff04-492c-8d29-caa89f17397e
Extent
Latitude: 55.816° to °
Longitude: -6.236° to 2.072°
Spatial reference system
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
Dataset reference date
2009-12-22 (creation)
2026-06-22 (revision)
Frequency of update
quarterly
Responsible party
Environment Agency (pointOfContact)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng
Source Metadata
XML
HTML

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Licence information

Open Government Licence