Asiantaeth yr Amgylchedd - cartref

Managing and improving the water environment

Water for life and livelihoods: River Basin Management Plans

Water in rivers, estuaries, coasts and aquifers will improve under measures set out in River Basin Management Plans, drawn up for river basin districts across England and Wales under the Water Framework Directive.                                                  

River Basin Management Plans are plans for protecting and improving the water environment and have been developed in consultation with organisations and individuals. They contain the main issues for the water environment and the actions we all need to take to deal with them. Everyone uses water in their daily lives, whether for recreational activities, industry, agriculture or as a water consumer.

The River Basin Management Plans have been approved by the Secretary of State for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Welsh Minister.

To view the plans please select the relevant river basin district below.

Catchment based approach for a healthier water environment

Catchment partnerships will coordinate action by local communities to protect and enhance our water environment.

Find out about our work to set up and support these partnerships - and how to bring your organisation on board.

The Catchment Restoration Fund (CRF) for England opens for applications on 3 February for projects that will deliver improvements to England’s water bodies.  Find out about CRF:

Programme of investigations

Our programme of investigations for river basin management planning, sets out how many investigations we plan to complete until December 2012. It lists those investigations which have been completed, those which are currently in progress and those we plan to start.

We will publish an updated programme every three months. For more information about specific investigations please contact the River Basin Programme Manager for the district you are interested in.

An investigation will be carried out where we have not set an objective of good as a result of uncertainty. We will complete an investigation to resolve this uncertainty for the next river basin management plan. This uncertainty may require us to:

  • Confirm the water body is failing;
  • Investigate cause of failure;
  • Investigate which actions to take.

Where possible, we will also use this information to take action during the planning cycle.

We aim to complete our investigations by December 2012. You can view our programme of investigations here:

  • Water Framework Directive investigations programme (updated July 2011) (PDF, 25KB)
  • Water Framework Directive investigations programme profile (updated July 2011) (Excel, 151KB)
  • Water Framework Directive investigations programme detail (updated July 2011) (Excel, 5MB)

    Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive

    The Floods Directive is a sister directive to the Water Framework Directive (WFD).  Both directives use the same unit of management (River Basin Districts) and are based on the same six year cycle of planning.