WFD River Basin Districts Cycle 4

This is a polygon dataset showing River Basin Districts, created to meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). River Basin Districts are large reporting units containing multiple water bodies.

River Basin Districts are the largest reporting units under the WFD, and each will contain many Management Catchments.

The WFD defines River Basin Districts as '…the area of land and sea, made up of one or more neighbouring river basins together with their associated groundwaters and coastal waters…'. River Basin Districts have been delineated by using River Catchments as “building blocks” that have been aggregated together within a GIS, ensuring that WFD rivers do not intersect boundaries. Coastal and transitional water bodies are also merged and assigned to a River Basin District.

Created using hydrological models based on EA LiDAR data informed with the Detailed River Network which has residual Ordnance Survey rights.

There is a layer file associated with this dataset which is called WFD_River_Basin_Districts_Cycle_4.lyrx.

Please note that there are limitations with the shapefile format of the data. The data applies to Cycle 4 of the WFD. Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved.