WFD River Waterbodies is a polyline Shapefile dataset collated as defined for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The river polylines were defined by using of the Environment Agency - General Quality Assessment (GQA) River Stretches dataset this is copied directly from the CEH 1:50K River Network with some additional stretches added in by the Environment Agency. Additional stretches were added to cover all stretches designated under the Fresh Water Fish Directive, all stretches designated within riverine SSSIs, and ensuring that all riverine abstractions which contributed to the designation of a Drinking Water Protected Area were sited on a designated river waterbody. In addition to this, some stretches were added where the upstream catchment size was > 10km2, but no other river stretch was designated (10km2 was the original cut-off catchment size form defining a waterbody under the WFD). The resultant WFD river waterbody datasets is a sub-set of the CEH network, including only stretches that meet any of the criteria outlined above.WFD River waterbodies share the same 'EA_WB_ID' as their river waterbody catchment allowing these 2 datasets to be linked. All river waterbodies are associated with a waterbody catchment. Not all catchments have a designated WFD river waterbody within them. These data apply to Cycle 1 of the Water Framework Directive. The equivalent layer for Cycle 2 is covered by WFD River Waterbodies Cycle 2 AfA292.
