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Water Framework Directive (WFD) River Water Body Catchments Cycle 3 Classification 2019 (Full Resolution)

Publisher
Environment Agency
Updated
6 July 2026
Topic
Not set

Summary

This is a polygon dataset showing Water Framework Directive (WFD) River Water Body Catchments. The catchments are associated with a single river water body.

This dataset also contains coastal catchments which are the areas of land that drain to coastal waters without passing through a defined WFD River Water Body. Coastal catchments usually include small streams with catchments less than 10km2, and all beaches.

This dataset provides attribution relating to the 2019 classification results, as well as other relevant information and data about each river water body.

Catchments are defined as an area of land from which all surface run-off flows through a series of streams, rivers, and possibly lakes, to a particular point in the watercourse such as a river confluence.

This data also contains areas of land which drain directly to coastal or estuarine waters, rather than through a river water body. In these scenarios, the field in the dataset called 'water_body_id' is set to a number, and the field in the dataset called 'water_body_type' is set to 'Coastal Catchment'.

Created using hydrological models based on EA LiDAR data informed with the Detailed River Network which has residual Ordnance Survey rights.

There is a layer file associated with this dataset, which is called WFD_River_Water_Body_Catchments_Cycle_3_Classification_2019.lyrx. 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.

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Additional information

Source Metadata
XML, HTML
Date added
02 July 2026
Harvest GUID
2803f216-f579-4f05-be16-ee11af4c1320
Extent (Latitude)
55.8111151497005° to 49.8647926358421°
Extent (Longitude)
-6.41866722959945° to 1.76370560966352°
Spatial reference system
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
Dataset reference date (creation)
2024-03-01
Dataset reference date (publication)
2025-06-23
Dataset reference date (revision)
2024-03-01
Frequency of update
notPlanned
Access constraints
There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.
Responsible party
Environment Agency (pointOfContact)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng

Contact

Enquiries

DSPcustomerforum@environment-agency.gov.uk

Freedom of information (FOI) requests

enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Licence information

Open Government Licence