The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
New study into river pollution
Five new research projects will investigate how pollution impacts UK rivers. Freshwater ecosystems are facing multiple pressures from a cocktail of pollutants, including chemicals, microplastics, pharmaceuticals, invasive species and land management practices.
UK Research and Innovation says that as a result, the majority of UK rivers fail to have good ecological status.
Only 14% of waterways in England, 46% in Wales, 50% in Scotland and 31% in Northern Ireland reach the threshold.
Poor water quality can result in loss of life in the rivers, threaten the structure and stability of the food chain, be dangerous for bathing, and lead to enhanced drinking water treatment needs and costs.
Researchers have been awarded funding by the Natural Environment Research Council and Defra from the £8.4 million Understanding Changes in Quality of UK Freshwaters programme. They will investigate how pollutants enter, leave and interact with rivers and supporting ecosystems.
The study will also determine how the movement of pollutants will be modified with changes in the water cycle, and work towards creating better tools to monitor and measure pollution.
As well as studying how climate change impacts water quality in rivers, the projects will look at how concentrations of multiple chemicals vary in freshwaters, using nine field catchments in Yorkshire – Rivers Aire, Calder, Derwent, Don, Nidd, Ouse, Swale, Ure and Wharfe.
Research on the River Thames and Bristol Avon field sites will examine how freshwater pollutants affect aquatic invertebrates and plants.
While studies across Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and north and west England will look at how livestock farming, its waste and sewage, and mitigation practices changes UK water quality.
A River Almond site in Scotland will investigate how interactions will occur between changes in climate and land use, and emergent contaminants in rivers.
The programme’s Freshwater Quality Champions, Professor Pippa Chapman and Professor Joseph Holden, from Leeds University, said: “There are huge water quality pressures on UK rivers.”