Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)

Published by:: Environment Agency
Last updated:: 05 December 2025
Topic:: Not added
Licence:: Other Licence
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Summary

This is a polyline dataset showing Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies. River centrelines represent the official river water body definition for the WFD.

This dataset provides attribution on the 2022 classification results, as well as other relevant information and data about each river, canal, and surface water transfer water body.

The data identifies the river water bodies managed under the WFD, and any related programmes. This includes canals and surface water transfers which are reported to Europe as artificial rivers. In these scenarios, the field in the dataset called 'waterbodytype' has a value of either 'Surface Water Transfer', or 'Canal'. These water bodies are represented by their centreline, and can be linked to other WFD data using the value in the 'waterbodyid' field.

The river centrelines are defined using geometry taken from the EA Detailed River Network, which has Ordnance Survey rights.

There are two layer files associated with this dataset. There is a layer file called WFDRiverCanalandSWTWaterBodiesCycle3Classification2022ChemicalClass.lyrx, and a layer file called WFDRiverCanalandSWTWaterBodiesCycle3Classification2022EcologicalClass.lyrx. The layer files display the chemical class, and the ecological class or potential for each river, canal, and surface water transfer water body. Please note that there are limitations with the shapefile format of the data. The data applies to Cycle 3 of the WFD. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2024. All rights reserved. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024.

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Data links

Link to the data	Format	File added	Data preview
Download OGC API - Features service , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFDRiverCanalandSWTWaterBodiesCycle3Classification2022_WFS , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFDRiverCanalandSWTWaterBodiesCycle3Classification2022_WMS , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFDRiverCanalandSWTWaterBodiesCycle3Classification2022_Download , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFD_River_Canal_and_SWT_Water_Bodies_Cycle_3_Classification_2022_Ecological_Class.lyrx , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFD_River_Canal_and_SWT_Water_Bodies_Cycle_3_Classification_2022_Chemical_Class.lyrx , Format: N/A, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	N/A	05 December 2025	Not available
Download WFD_River_Canal_and_Surface_Water.shp.zip , Format: ZIP, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	ZIP	05 December 2025	Not available
Download Water_Framework_Directive_WFD_River_Canal_and_Surface_Water_Transfer_Water_Bodies_Cycle_3_Classification_2022_Full_Resolution.gpkg.zip , Format: ZIP, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	ZIP	05 December 2025	Not available
Download Water_Framework_Directive_WFD_River_Canal_and_Surface_Water_Transfer_Water_Bodies_Cycle_3_Classification_2022_Full_Resolution.geojson.zip , Format: ZIP, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	ZIP	05 December 2025	Not available
Download Water_Framework_Directive_WFD_River_Canal_and_Surface_Water_Transfer_Water_Bodies_Cycle_3_Classification_2022_Full_Resolution.gdb.zip , Format: ZIP, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	ZIP	05 December 2025	Not available
Download Notes On Attribution For 2022 Datasets.docx , Format: DOCX, Dataset: Water Framework Directive (WFD) River, Canal, and Surface Water Transfer Water Bodies Cycle 3 Classification 2022 (Full Resolution)	DOCX	05 December 2025	Not available

Additional information

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Added to data.gov.uk: 2025-12-02
Access contraints: There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Harvest GUID: b0dc3be8-3384-423d-af5d-a93934565bc7
Extent: Latitude: 55.8111151497005° to °; Longitude: -6.41866722959945° to 1.76370560966352°
Spatial reference system: http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
Dataset reference date: 2024-03-01 (creation); 2025-06-22 (publication); 2025-12-02 (revision)
Frequency of update: notPlanned
Responsible party: Environment Agency (pointOfContact)
ISO 19139 resource type: dataset
Metadata language: eng
Source Metadata: XML; HTML

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Open Government Licence

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