Is pollution in England’s rivers really getting worse? There’s more good news than you might think

It has been widely reported that English rivers have gone from 97% being classified as having “good chemical status” in 2016 to none in 2019. Across England, the Environment Agency monitors water quality by directly measuring some pollutants and characterising the life in the river. This data is then used to classify our rivers’ water quality: “high”, “good”, “moderate”, “poor” or “bad”. However, rather than water quality actually declining this drastically within this timeframe, the way we measure it has changed – this perceived decline is an artefact of the data. From 2019, new chemicals were included in the testing, among them “ubiquitous, persistent, bioaccumulative, toxic substances”, which accounts for this major change.