High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Monday, September 07, 2009
River Water Quality
Low standards of river water quality may threaten the aquatic environment, drinking water quality and recreational water use. Sewage, industry, urban development and agriculture are some of the factors that may affect river water quality.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency ( SEPA) has established a Digitised River Network ( DRN) to classify about 25,000 km of the approximately 100,000 km of rivers and burns in Scotland. The DRN comprises those watercourses draining a catchment of 10 km 2 or more. Rivers are classified as excellent, good, fair, poor or seriously polluted according to measures of chemical, biological, nutrient and aesthetic quality. Between 2000 and 2006 the length of 'unclassified' river fell by 84 per cent to 2076 km.
Between 1999 and 2006, the length of poor and seriously polluted rivers in Scotland fell by 37 per cent to 734 km. SEPA set a target of a reduction of 351 km in poor and seriously polluted rivers for the period 1999-2006 1. Poor biological and nutrient quality are the most frequent reasons for classifying rivers as poor or seriously polluted.
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Source: Scottish Environment Protection Agency
Following the introduction of the EU's Water Framework Directive, Scotland has focused attention on the changes in monitoring networks and reporting required for compliance with this. It is intended to develop a new indicator incorporating the new networks for publication in 2010.
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