WFD River Water Bodies Cycle 1 is a polyline Shapefile dataset collated as defined for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The river polylines were defined by using the Environment Agency - General Quality Assessment (GQA) River Stretches dataset which was copied directly from the CEH 1:50K River Network with some additional stretches added in by the Environment Agency.
The resultant WFD river water body dataset is a sub-set of the CEH network, including only stretches that meet any of the criteria for the WFD.
This dataset was previously known as WFD River Waterbodies
Water bodies are attributed with a unique identifier ‘EA_WB_ID' (equivalent to WB_ID in Cycle 2) so this dataset can be linked directly to other WFD data sources such as river water body catchment, physical characteristics, risk, classification and proposed objectives as well as Cycle 2 datasets. NB Not all catchments have a designated WFD river water body within them.
This dataset covers the layer for Cycle 1 of the Water Framework Directive and does not include artificial water bodies; these are available as WFD ARTIFICIAL WATER BODIES: CANALS AND SURFACE WATER TRANSFER CHANNELS CYCLE 1. However, the equivalent layer for Cycle 2 is covered under WFD River, Canal and Surface Water Transfer Water bodies Cycle 2 (ie both artificial and natural water bodies)
Please note that the Environment Agency no longer provide data for water bodies in Wales - this should now available from Natural Resources Wales. Attribution statement: Contains Environment Agency information © Environment Agency 2017. All rights reserved. Based on digital spatial data licensed from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, © NERC (CEH). © Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2013.
