What is happening to wild fish habitat?
Currently only 14% of river in England have good ecological status. But why is this? What pressures do our wild fish face in their habitats?
Dive a little deeper into the struggles beneath the surface....
What is happening above the surface which affects wild fish?
Click on the red arrows to see what problems can occur along a river, and then switch to our solutions illustration to see how they can be controlled. How many of these activities have you seen happening on your river?
Bad practice
Click the arrows
Forestry
Issue: Intensive commercial conifer forestry plantations cause acidification of river water, which is damaging to aquatic invertebrates and can inhibit spawning of salmonids. Pesticides used to treat young trees also enter the rivers and have a toxic impact on aquatic life.
Industrial discharges
Issue: Many industries abstract water from rivers, and after use, discharge the water back in a worse state than it was received – typically with excess nutrients such as phosphate. This promotes algal growth and removes oxygen from the water. The returned water can also contain chemicals toxic to aquatic life, such as chlorine.
Floodplains
Issue: Floodplains are areas of low-lying ground adjacent to a river. Flooding is a natural process and floodplains are there to contain the extra water in periods of heavy rainfall. Blocking rivers from their floodplains stops this natural process, which causes worse flooding downstream. Buildings on floodplains are also at risk from flooding, which can be dangerous to human life and also expensive to repair and insure. Disconnecting floodplains also reduces the resources available to aquatic life as well as preventing water cleaning. Floodplains clean water by filtering it through soil and allowing silt to drop out from slower flows as they cross the land.
Upland habitat
Issue: Draining uplands to improve land quality for farming prevents natural absorption of water (the ‘sponge effect’) through the ground. This means that heavy rainfall immediately drains rivers and causes flash floods downstream.
Sewage
Issue: Poorly maintained septic tanks (home sewage systems not connected to main pipelines) and old-fashioned wastewater treatment plants leak sewage into rivers. Water full of sewage can spread diseases and also cause lots of algae to grow which steals the oxygen aquatic plants and animals need to survive.
Urban runoff
Issue: Roads and urban areas are often covered in surfaces that don’t let water through, so when it rains, water runs off surfaces rather than filtering through into the soil. This stops important underground water levels being topped up and can trigger unnatural flooding events from the extra surface water. The run-off can also contain chemicals, which reduce water quality and harm aquatic life.
Impoundments (Dams / weirs)
Issue: Blocking or diverting rivers changes the amount of water flowing downstream; changing natural flows can make animals homes unsuitable to live in. Barriers also stop fish like salmon getting to the upstream areas they need to lay their eggs.
Livestock
Issue: Allowing farm animals to access the river to drink. Animal waste is full of unwanted nutrients and chemicals that can be dangerous to fish and insects. Livestock in the river also stir up the bottom sediments; sediment reduces light availability to plants and can smother aquatic insects and eggs when it resettles.
Farmyard manure & slurry
Issue: Poorly sited manure heaps and inadequate storage of slurry pose a high risk to water quality from leaching and spreading onto land at inappropriate times. This can cause fish kills and loss of freshwater organisms, as well as costly fines and expensive repair bills for farmers. Tracks and ditches can also act as pollution pathways, by carrying dirty water and pollution from farm waste into watercourses.
Arable farming
Issue: After ploughing, rain can wash the top layer of soil away, causing large amounts of sediment to enter rivers. Lots of sediment in the water blocks light that plants need to grow. It also covers the riverbed, stopping insects and eggs getting the oxygen they need to survive. Leaving the soil bare for long periods of time also encourages mobilisation of soil and run off of nutrients into watercourses.
Good practice
Click the arrows
Forestry
Good practice: Keep conifers away from sensitive headwaters and instead plant broadleaf species in sensitive areas, as theses do not contribute to acidification. Use alternative non-toxic methods of pest control within forestry plantations to prevent damage to aquatic life.
Industrial discharges
Good practice: Encourage industries to return water back to rivers in the same – or better – quality than they received it. Where possible, connect industrial units to mains drainage rather than discharging directly into rivers. This gives the effluent a chance to be treated at a wastewater treatment plant before entering the river, removing many of the toxic chemicals.
Floodplains
Good practice: Do not use barriers to block rivers from their floodplains. Allowing land to flood also naturally fertilises fields, as river sediment is full of nutrients. This also removes sediment from watercourses, making the main river channel cleaner. Stopping the building of houses on floodplains will help prevent flood risk to humans and property.
Upland habitat
Good practice: Reinstate the ‘sponge effect’ by blocking up historical drainage ditches and reducing soil compaction. This allows the ground to hold more water back, prompting a more even flow regime so that flash flooding is prevented and more water is held back to flow down the river in times of drought.
Sewage
Good practice: Connect houses to the main sewage pipelines wherever possible and upgrade wastewater treatment plants to properly clean the wastewater and prevent leaks of raw sewage into rivers. Where septic tanks have to be used, educate owners how to be responsible and look after them properly.
Urban runoff
Good practice: Install settlement ponds to clean up dirty road water before it enters the rivers. Maintain a strip of vegetation along the riverbank, known as ‘buffer strips’ to assist with cleaning the runoff. Wherever possible use porous surfaces in urban areas, which will allow water to filter through the soil and back into the ground rather than directly into rivers.
Impoundments (Dams / weirs)
Good practice: Remove dams and weirs completely where possible to allow water to flow naturally and fish to reach upstream areas to lay their eggs. Where barriers cannot be removed, install multi-species fish passages, such as fish ladders or rock ramps, so fish have a chance to get through.
Livestock
Good practice: Restrict livestock access to rivers. Use bank fencing to prevent animals from entering the river to stop unwanted nutrients and chemicals entering the river, which will also encourage marginal river vegetation to grow. This vegetation stabilises sediments in the riverbank as well as acting as a filter to keep water clean and aquatic life healthy.
Farmyard manure & slurry
Good practice: Install proper slurry storage with the appropriate capacity to eliminate the risk of spills and leaks. Only spread slurry onto land at appropriate times, and particularly avoid heavy rainfall periods or when the ground is frozen. Locate manure heaps correctly to better protect watercourses and reduce the need and costs associated with water treatment. Cover tracks and yards with gravel or stone to avoid poaching of the ground. Relocate gateways in high-risk areas to remove or reduce pathways for dirty water runoff.
Arable farming
Good practice: Where possible, encourage farmers to stop ploughing and use direct sowing of crops, which encourages earthworms that help break up and aerate the soil. This will retain more soil on the land and stop it entering rivers, as well as reducing costs for farmers. Where ploughing does occur, make sure it follows the contours of fields rather than straight up and down to reduce sediment run off. Employ buffer strips between ploughed areas and rivers to help reduce sediment inputs into the river. Plant seasonal cover crops to prevent mobilisation of soil and runoff of nutrients, especially following harvest. Maintain a permanent area of pasture alongside watercourses to allow the land to absorb more rainfall and reduce the volume of water moving over farmland and into rivers. This is especially important for steeper ground.
Other Issues
Mixed Netting
A key part of achieving healthy wild salmon and sea trout stocks is stopping indiscriminate netting of fish along the coast. Because of us, complete closure of these nets has occurred throughout Scotland. Now we can be certain that individuals from the most sensitive river populations are not being fished and are left to breed.
Forestry
Forestry can be beneficial to river catchments by effectively retaining water to even out river flows and producing shade that can control water temperatures – increasingly important as climate change bites. However, non-native conifer plantations can impact upland spawning and nursery habitat by leaching acid and toxic chemicals into the water. We are using legal challenges to address these issues.
Invasive Species
Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) damage British plants, animals and ecosystems by competing for habitat and food, spreading disease and by direct predation. As a water user, please do your bit to help stop the spread of invasive plants and animals in British waters.
Abstraction
Healthy rivers need water. Over-abstraction is destructive to fish and water insects and allows pollutants to be more damaging by cutting down their dilution. We are championing abstraction reform that puts the needs of aquatic ecology first and fighting for all unsustainable abstraction to be stopped.
Predation
Predation is a natural process within water environments but we believe that excessive predation is more a symptom of other bottlenecks. In-stream barriers such as weirs or hydro schemes hold up downstream migrating juvenile fish making them easy prey, while poor in-river habitat denies fish natural cover, again making them vulnerable. Low flows due to abstraction hold up adult migration and make them targets for mammals and birds. We work to address the causes of unnaturally high predation rather than the predators themselves.
Catch & Release
We believe that Catch & Release is a highly effective conservation tool for protecting all wild fish. Although now widely practised by anglers, catch & release should be further encouraged, particularly on those rivers where stocks have been identified as being at risk.
Fish Passage
Fish passage is vital for salmon, trout and sea trout. Many rivers are failing environmental standards because of too many barriers to fish migration. Barriers prevent access to upstream spawning and juvenile habitat. They also impact young fish migrating downstream, forcing them to shoal at obstructions and increasing their vulnerability to predation. We continue to press for a new Fish Passage Order from the Government, first promised over a decade ago!
Flooding & Dredging
The need to dredge a river merely treats a symptom of poor, uncoordinated management, not the primary cause. We champion flood risk management that uses natural processes at the catchment scale to slow water down, reduce flooding and limit the input of damaging pollutants from the land.
Hydropower
Hydropower can play a part in energy generation, provided that steps are taken to ensure schemes cause no adverse effects to our aquatic ecosystems and particularly fish movement. We work with planners and decision makers to voice the environmental arguments and, importantly, that projects have effective monitoring to ensure minimal environmental damage.
Fracking
Shale gas exploration can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but there are risks. The Government must ensure the regulatory framework applied to the industry is fit for purpose and provides sufficient protection to the natural environment.
Beavers
Beavers have the potential to bring benefits to the ecology of our watercourses. However, this must be balanced against potential disruption to fish migration. We base our policies on the best available science, which we are co-funding, and on a case-by-case basis for beaver reintroduction.
We rely on your support to protect wild fish and the places they live.
By donating or joining as a member you will be making a huge contribution to the fight to protect the UK's waters and ensure a sustainable future for wild fish.