River Water Quality
There are over 6,000 km of monitored rivers within the South West. These rivers are well distributed throughout the region, although just over one-third can be found in Devon.
In 2006, almost all of the Region's rivers were of good or fair quality - 97.14% in terms of chemical water quality and 98.91% in terms of biological quality. In addition, 21.8% of monitored rivers in the region had high or very high nitrate levels and 42.8% had high or very high phosphate levels. (Environment Agency, 2007)
In 2006, 97.14% of all monitored rivers in the South West had good or fair water quality, this was considerably higher than the mean of 91.96% for England and Wales and the third highest found in the regions. There has been a significant improvement in chemical water quality in the region since 1990, when 93.11% were of good or fair quality. There was also a small improvement of 0.05 percentage points on 2005. The vast majority (81%) of the region's river water was classified as being of good chemical quality in 2006, whilst 16.10% was of fair quality. A very small proportion were classified as being of poor (2.81%) or bad quality (0.04%) quality. Cornwall and Dorset had the highest proportion of rivers with good or fair quality (100%). Only Somerset recorded water of bad chemical quality water, although this was an extremely small proportion of those rivers monitored in the county (0.3%). (Environment Agency, 2007)
In 2006, 98.91% of all monitored rivers in the South West were of good or fair biological quality, this was considerably higher than the mean of 94.45% for England and Wales. There has been a significant improvement on biological water quality in the region since 1990, when 96.88% were of good or fair quality. There was also a small improvement of 0.05 percentage points on 2005.
The South West had the highest proportion of rivers with good or fair biological quality in England during 2006. The vast majority (88.77%) of the region's rivers had good biological quality, whilst 10.14% was of fair quality. A very small proportion did not meet these standards, with 0.68% deemed as being poor quality and 0.41% bad quality. Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire had the highest proportion of rivers with good biological quality in the region (100%). Only Cornwall recorded water of bad biological quality, although this was an extremely small proportion of those rivers monitored in the county (2.71%). (Environment Agency, 2007)
More information about river water quality is available from the South West Observatory Environment website. Water quality is also an indicator used to monitor progress of the Regional Environment Strategy.