Healthy catchments, rivers and coastal waters

Healthy rivers, catchments and coastal waters support wildlife, recreation, wellbeing, tourism and local pride.

Improving them means looking beyond individual assets and understanding the pressures across whole catchments.

 

Our work combines investment in wastewater services, storm overflow reduction, monitoring, smart technology and partnership working with regulators, local authorities, environmental organisations, farmers and landowners.

Bathing waters are important for coastal communities, visitors and local economies

Bathing waters are important for coastal communities, visitors and local economies.

In the North East, where we provide wastewater services, 33 out of 35 designated bathing waters achieved Good or Excellent status. This included 24 rated Excellent and nine rated Good, maintaining the high level of performance seen in 2024.

We recognise that two sites – Cullercoats and Littlehaven – have not yet reached the required standard, and further investigation and partnership work continues.

Reducing storm overflow activity

Reducing storm overflow activity

We are investing in our wastewater network and using improved monitoring and smart technology to better understand where storm overflows are operating and target action to reduce activity over time.

In 2025, our Event Duration Monitoring data showed a 32% reduction in storm overflow spills, with total spills reducing from 40,792 in 2024 to 27,756. Total spill duration also reduced by 49% over the same period.

Reducing storm overflow activity further will require sustained investment, innovation and catchment-wide action.

Supporting catchment partnerships

Improving water quality means working with others across whole catchments.

We invested more than £150,000 to support Catchment Partnerships through four host Rivers Trusts. We also invested £104,000 through our Field to Tap programme, supporting farms to implement measures such as watercourse fencing, soil sampling, precision mapping and yard improvements.

These activities help reduce pressures at source and support wider benefits for water quality, nature and communities.

Using data and innovation

Using data and innovation

Smart technology is helping us better understand and manage our wastewater network.

Smart Sewers uses live data, rainfall forecasting and artificial intelligence to make better use of existing pipes, pumping stations and storage. River Deep Mountain AI and OCI³ are exploring how open data, AI and catchment intelligence can support better decisions for river health.

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