WFD River Water Body Catchments: Simplified 2019 Classification

Water Framework Directive (WFD) River Water Body Catchments Cycle 3 Classification 2019 (Simplified) is a polygon dataset delineating land areas draining to specific river water bodies or directly to coastal waters. The dataset includes attribution for 2019 classification results and covers coastal catchments for streams under 10 km² and beaches. Its geometry is simplified from a higher-resolution source to enable faster web mapping services.

Use Cases

• Assessing river water body status based on 2019 classification results.
• Modeling surface water runoff and pollutant pathways to coastal waters.
• Planning land management interventions within defined hydrological catchments.
• Creating simplified web maps for public communication of water body conditions.

Strengths

• Includes specific attribution for the 2019 WFD Cycle 3 classification results.
• Explicitly models coastal catchments for areas draining directly to the sea, covering streams with catchments less than 10 km².
• Derived from authoritative sources, including EA LiDAR data and the Detailed River Network.

Limitations

• Geometry is simplified, which may reduce precision for detailed spatial analysis compared to the full-resolution version.
• Key metadata such as row count, specific column names, and license details are not provided across any source.
• The 'last updated' date conflict (2026-04-07 vs. null) suggests potential metadata inconsistency.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency (UK), Government Digital Service

Collection Method

Created using hydrological models based on EA LiDAR data informed with the Detailed River Network.

Time Range

Cycle 3 classification results from 2019.

Freshness

2026-04-07 14:36:42.256001

Geography

United Kingdom (implied by data sources Environment Agency and Ordnance Survey)