All 4,658 surface water bodies in England were assessed against a range of standards covering wildlife, water quality and physical habitat. According to the Environment Agency, 65.4% of water bodies were classified as moderate, 17% as poor, 3.1% as bad and 0.1% as high.
The 14.3% figure is lower than the 16.3% reported in 2019, but the Environment Agency said the two datasets are not directly comparable. It attributed the difference to updated analytical methods that draw on a wider set of monitoring data and focus on locations where problems were more likely to be found. Combined with the classification system’s “one-out, all-out” rule, under which a single failing element causes an entire water body to fail its overall status, this means some water bodies now show a lower status than in 2019 even where there has not necessarily been a genuine decline in water quality.
The Environment Agency pointed out that 82% of individual ecological indicators are now rated Good or High, which it said reflects an underlying health in many waterways that is not always visible in the overall classifications. It said around a third of water bodies that failed to achieve good status did so because of a single failing element. The River Foss, for example, scores Good on every ecological indicator except phosphate, where it scores Moderate — bringing its overall ecological status down to Moderate despite what the Agency describes as a healthy environment for fish, plants and invertebrates.
The Environment Agency said it carried out a record 10,000 inspections of water company sites and has increased criminal investigations into breaches
Other findings in the 2025 dataset include ammonia levels at good or better status in 92.9% of cases, and groundwater results showing 41% achieving good status, compared with 37% in 2019. All surface waters in England continue to fail chemical status, which the Environment Agency attributes largely to persistent pollutants that accumulate in the environment and take decades to break down.
The Environment Agency said no EU country is currently on track to meet WFDR objectives, and cited comparably low rates of good ecological status in Germany (8%) and the Netherlands (1%).
Alan Lovell, Chair of the Environment Agency, said the classifications “help us understand where water bodies are improving and where further action is needed,” adding that “the results show that too many water bodies are still not achieving the standards we want to see.” He said the Agency shares “the public’s ambition for faster progress,” pointing to what he described as its largest ever enforcement workforce, along with improved data and stronger powers.
The Environment Agency said many factors affect water quality, including sewage spills, agricultural nutrients, and urban and transport surface water run-off, which can carry litter, petrol and garden pesticides. It noted that the government has introduced stronger powers through the Water (Special Measures) Act, including tougher penalties for water companies, and that the latest price review secured a record £22.1 billion for water company environmental improvements by 2030 — more than three times the investment of the previous five years.
The Agency also highlighted the River Roch as an example of targeted intervention, saying phosphate levels there improved from poor in 2019 to good in 2025 following a catchment permit requiring sewage treatment works upstream of the Manchester Ship Canal to remove more phosphate from their discharge. It said this approach reversed deterioration in the Manchester Ship Canal and led to improvements in other connected rivers.
On enforcement, the Environment Agency said it carried out a record 10,000 inspections of water company sites and has increased criminal investigations into breaches. It plans to raise the number of annual farm inspections from 4,000 to 6,000 over the next three years. Since 2015, it said it has concluded more than 70 prosecutions against water and sewerage companies, securing fines of over £158 million.
