UK Water Quality Harmonised Monitoring Scheme Data from 1975

Historic UK Water Quality Sampling Harmonised Monitoring Scheme (HMS) data contains annual statistics for a series of sampling sites. The dataset includes annual means, maximum and minimum values for specified determinands from 1975 onwards. It was established to provide an archive for international obligations and to analyze long-term trends and riverborne inputs to the sea.

Use Cases

• Analyze long-term trends of water quality determinands based on annual statistics.
• Estimate riverborne input of selected determinands to the sea based on monitoring site data.
• Support international water quality reporting obligations based on the harmonised monitoring archive.

Strengths

• Data coverage begins in 1975, providing a long-term historical record.
• Includes annual summary statistics (mean, max, min) for analysis.
• Designed for international obligations, suggesting a standardized collection method.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Harmonised Monitoring Scheme (HMS) for water quality sampling.

Time Range

1975 onwards

Freshness

unknown

Geography

United Kingdom