Rivers and Burns

Most of Britain’s drinking water comes from the rivers and reservoirs in the country’s uplands, and many of these areas are national parks where special care in land management keeps the water clean.

According to the Environment Agency’s 2009 assessment of waterways, four out of the five cleanest rivers in Britain are sourced in Northumberland National Park.

These include the Barrow Burn catchment in the Upper Coquet Valley; the Ridlees Burn south of the Coquet in the Otterburn Military Ranges; the Linhope Burn, a tributary of the River Breamish; and the upper Breamish itself, which is part of the Till catchment.  All these rivers tumble down from the Cheviot Hills in Northumberland National Park.

The pure nature of their water is probably related to the type of farming that has conserved the moorland character of the area and its low population which combine to make this landscape officially the most tranquil in the country (CPRE Tranquillity Mapping Report).

These high quality water courses are near the river sources in the uplands, rising in the high Cheviot Hills. They are home to migrating salmon and sea trout, which swim upstream from the sea to lay their eggs, and to otters and other wildlife such as dippers, the water crow-foot, a floating member of the buttercup family and water rock bristle (a very rare moss found only in Northumberland).

Northumberland National Park Authority works closely with farmers and land managers to ensure they continue to manage this special landscape to protect this national resource. Good animal husbandry and moorland management prevent harmful run-off of chemicals and silt into the rivers which damage the habitats.

The Environment Agency’s report showed that under its General Quality Assessment (GQA), seven out of ten English rivers, and nine out of ten Welsh rivers had either “very good” or “good” standards of biological and chemical water quality – the best in more than a century.

Under the new, higher EU standards for rivers and waterways, which include the state of the river and its banks as a wildlife habitat, and the impact of pressures such as water abstraction, only five of the 6,114 rivers in Britain are in pristine condition. The fifth spotless river is the Caletwr in north Wales which flows into the river Conwy.

More details about the habitat as well as threats and positive actions to improve it, can be found by downloading the Habitat Action Plan: Rivers and Burns (22kb).

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