Here are the top rivers in England and Wales that had sewage overflows in 2022. As the list is grouped by company, some rivers may feature more than once, being polluted by different companies along their length.
The full list is quite long. You can access that
As there are different rivers with the same name in different parts of the country, it didn't seem sensible to group by river name alone.
The category of "river" is made by the water companies in their "Consent to Discharge with Conditions" - so although there are a number of Seas in this list, that's what they are reporting
Rank | River | Company | Sewage Dumps | Change | Duration (Hours) | Change |
1 | Unknown | South West Water | 2,045 | 86 | 19,395 | 2,764 |
2 | River Calder | Yorkshire Water | 2,968 | -1,087 | 18,079 | -9,821 |
3 | River Severn | Severn Trent Water | 2,268 | -388 | 17,495 | -11,245 |
4 | River Garw | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 834 | 304 | 16,134 | 9,559 |
5 | River Tamar | South West Water | 1,523 | -235 | 15,546 | -1,814 |
6 | River Teifi | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 1,889 | 4 | 14,079 | -1,656 |
7 | River Tawe | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 1,818 | 211 | 13,981 | 727 |
8 | River Aire | Yorkshire Water | 3,571 | -514 | 13,810 | -7,329 |
9 | River Irwell | United Utilities | 2,385 | -347 | 12,939 | -1,416 |
10 | River Eden | United Utilities | 1,692 | -101 | 11,780 | -3,842 |
11 | River Ellen | United Utilities | 882 | 189 | 11,730 | 1,694 |
12 | River Usk | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 1,560 | -198 | 11,040 | -3,813 |
13 | River Tame | United Utilities | 2,064 | 439 | 11,012 | 2,912 |
14 | River Wharfe | Yorkshire Water | 1,687 | -471 | 10,798 | -2,462 |
15 | Mersey Estuary | United Utilities | 1,077 | -51 | 10,313 | 1,511 |
16 | River Rother | Southern Water | 784 | -156 | 9,965 | -2,347 |
17 | River Rhymney | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 1,551 | 46 | 9,827 | 567 |
18 | River Ouse | Yorkshire Water | 1,656 | -443 | 9,755 | -7,560 |
19 | River Taff | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 1,115 | -48 | 9,562 | -2,045 |
20 | River Taf | Dwr Cymru Welsh Water | 636 | -127 | 9,240 | -2,538 |
EDM (Event Duration Monitoring) data and Consented Discharges to Controlled Waters with Conditions from Environment Agency & Data Map Wales
Experimental derived data from Thames Water API, Some data may be missing or inaccurate. This uses Environment Agency rainfall data from the real-time data API (Beta) - Rainfall data is delayed by up to two days.
This website is intended to provide an accurate representation of the Environment Agency data. The data is hard to use, and thus some errors may have been made. If you find something that is incorrect, please raise an issue at the GitHub issues page and we'll endeavour to fix it quickly.
This project is not associated, approved or endorsed by any of the companies whose logos you see here.