Water bodies are expected to provide a range of ‘goods and services’.

These include providing us with clean drinking water, supporting diverse habitats for plants and animals, visual beauty, and a resource for a range of industries.

They also face many pressures including point source pollution for example from the end of a pipe), diffuse pollution (pollution from many small sources, such as water running off roads), impoundment (storage of water behind a dam), flooding, drought, abstraction (removal of water for drinking supplies and other uses), changes to the route of rivers (either naturally or as a result of engineering), and competition from different user groups.

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