The River Dee flows through England and Wales Henry Ciechanowicz/Alamy
This article is new scientist and the teeth joint campaign, Save England’s rivers. This year-long collaboration will reveal what’s happening to Britain’s rivers and how to restore them through a series of special articles, films, podcasts and events.
Standing by a river in England, you can get in touch with the ancients. Short, wild names such as Thames, Leith, Tuff and Lagan tell the history of the islands, from ancient Britons to Romans, Saxons and Vikings. These rivers are part of the past and present. But they face an uncertain future.
All over the world, rivers are valuable, often sacred, cultural and utilitarian assets. They are features of human settlements that have been used for thousands of years as sources of drinking water, food, irrigation, waste disposal, power, navigation, defense, and even inspiration.
In the UK many of these services are equally relevant today. Tap water mostly comes from rivers. Sewage is disposed of to them – preferably treated, but often not. Rivers irrigate crops, power homes, clear flood waters and keep boats afloat. Millions of people spend part of their leisure time playing in or near rivers.
England is a country of rivers. Globally, about 0.8% of the land is covered by freshwater. In the UK, that number is 3% of her. There are about 1,500 river systems, totaling more than 200,000 kilometers, through vast intermediate habitats, from gushing highland headwaters to gentle floodplain meanders.
According to the National River Flow Archive at the UK Center for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, these rivers are “just streams” that are short, narrow and shallow by world standards. However, they have very diverse personalities. According to a recent report by the UK National Commission for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), “Rivers and their floodplains are among the most important environments in the UK.”
“Rivers and their floodplains, and the close relationship between the two, are well known, but they also support disproportionate levels of biodiversity relative to their size within the landscape. I’m here.
Drinking water and flood management
Rivers are important for many reasons, but the most obvious advantage of rivers in the UK is the water they supply. About two-thirds of the tap water in England and Wales comes from rivers and the reservoirs and lakes into which they flow, according to Water UK, which represents the UK’s fishing industry. The rest is harvested from the aquifer. Northern Ireland and Scotland depend almost entirely on rivers, reservoirs and lakes. Overall, 87% of the UK’s water supply comes from these sources.
According to government statistics, the UK water companies use about 4.6 cubic kilometers of water from England’s rivers, lakes and reservoirs for public supply each year. People drink it, bathe in it, flush toilets, water gardens, and use it to wash clothes, floors, and cars. increase.
Water is extracted for other purposes. The generator takes 3.4 cubic kilometers to turn a steam turbine, but fish and watercress farms he uses 0.8 cubic kilometers, and agricultural and civilian water supply another 0.8 cubic kilometers. This amounts to a total of 9.6 cubic kilometers, equivalent to one cubic water tank and over 2 kilometers in all dimensions.
Even relatively wet countries like the UK are milking.The UK government says that about a fifth of surface water sources are being depleted by over-abstraction, with repercussions for river health. I’m guessing.
The opposite problem, overwatering, becomes more and more common during winter. Flooding is a growing problem as climate change causes extreme weather events, including biblical heavy rains. According to the Environment Agency, he has had six of the wettest years in the UK since 1998 in a decade of record. Last year, he saw three named Atlantic storms for the first time in one week.
Natural floodplains help reduce the risk of flooding by corralling excess water and slowly returning it to the river. This is especially true of river landscapes designed by Beaver. Beaver dams and pools significantly slow the passage of water through the system. Whereas rain used to fall to the ground and run directly into the waterway, it is now trapped for weeks. Beavers are being reintroduced across the UK after gaining legal protection last year.
Plastic waste dumped along the banks of the Thames in London Mark Phillips/Alamy
The problem is that many of these floodplains are far from nature. Moreover, housing estates and industrial developments often sit on top of them, and these generally do nothing to mitigate flooding.
Water supply and flood protection are two of the many ‘ecosystem services’ that rivers provide. These are important goods and services that flow from nature, such as water, pollination, and clean air, and are increasingly referred to as natural capital.
economic and health benefits
The UK was the first country to audit its own natural capital and is currently one of 26 countries. In 2012, the government launched the Natural Capital Commission (NCC) (now dissolved) to advise on the state of the UK’s natural capital, to help deliver on its promise to ‘be the first generation to leave the UK’s natural environment’. ) was established. Better than I inherited it.” In 2020, the NCC published its first set of accounts.
Systems for building up natural capital, called experimental ecosystem accounts, are a work in progress, and because nature is complex, they are by no means perfect. But they still say a lot about the value of the river.
Water withdrawal alone is worth £6.8bn a year, essentially the cost of maintaining taps if rivers do not supply the UK, an asset worth £134bn (NCC emphasized that these are not prices). Nature tags: Given that the natural world sustains all life on earth, its value is infinite.) The wetlands sequester 3.5 million tonnes of carbon annually, which is worth his £831 million. Its assets are valued at almost £30 billion. Hydropower is worth £136 million at 6865 GWh per year. Its assets are valued at £2.2 billion.
These “supply and coordinate” services are complemented by less tangible but less valuable cultural services. About a tenth of the UK’s 5.8 billion annual outdoor recreation and tourist visits are concentrated in freshwater, worth his £681 million. Assets are worth £32 billion. Recreational fishing is a £1.7 billion a year industry. Around 2.7 million people benefit from being in and around freshwater, worth £870 million a year. This asset is valued at almost £48 billion. Even house prices benefit from £2.9 billion a year from the river’s proximity.
Habitats critical to biodiversity
One asset that has not yet been incorporated into natural capital accounting is biodiversity, but it is clear that rivers are important reservoirs of what is left of the UK. Globally, rivers and other freshwater bodies are disproportionately rich in biodiversity. Despite covering less than 1% of the Earth’s surface, they are home to about one-third of the vertebrates described, including about 40% of all fish.
Britain’s rivers and the wetlands they supply are also disproportionately, albeit to a lesser extent, biodiverse. About 10% of the UK’s species live here, according to the Environment Agency. The IUCN lists 346 endangered river-dependent species, including eels, otters, vertale godwits and feather mosses. The Environment Agency says more than 10% of his freshwater and wetland species in the UK are threatened with extinction.
One reason rivers have biodiversity is because they are diverse. A short stretch of lowland river has 10 different habitats. Pools, streams (shallow water that flows quickly over stones), glides (deeper and slower flowing water), backwaters, beds of aquatic plants, submerged tree roots, exposed sediments, riverbanks, riparian vegetation and floodplains – these are All provide food and shelter for a diverse repertoire of species. Further upstream, there are headwaters, waterfalls and rapids, as well as special species such as freshwater pearl mussels, white crayfish, lamprey eels, bullheads, juvenile salmon, trout and mullet. These juveniles eventually make their way to the sea and form part of the £713m annual income of the UK fishery.
Rare chalk flows and poor ecosystem health
England also has most of the world’s chalk streams. It is a rare and internationally important habitat fed by the chalk alkaline aquifers and characterized by gravel and flint beds and crystal clear water. They are home to a unique ecosystem, dubbed Britain’s Great Barrier Reef. There are only 210 of these waterways in the world, 170 of which are in England (the rest are in northern France).
Not surprisingly, the value of ecosystem services is strongly related to the ecological state of the asset. In most of Britain it is not a happy story. England, Wales and Northern Ireland do not have rivers that are considered to be of high ecological health according to the criteria set out in the Four Nations Water Framework Directive. Only 14% are good. The rest are moderate, bad, or bad. None are in good standing with respect to chemical contamination and none are in overall health. In Scotland, 8% of rivers are ecologically sound.
The IUCN report is outspoken about the issue, stating that “a truly natural [river] No environment exists anymore, free from direct and indirect human modification. However, according to Addy, there is hope. “There are some grounds for optimism. River restoration in the UK is making incremental changes, with more and more projects underway everywhere.”
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