WFD Surface Water Management Catchments Cycle 4

This is a polygon dataset showing Surface Water Management Catchments, which was created to meet the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). Management Catchments are larger than Operational Catchments, but smaller than River Basin Districts. They contain multiple water bodies.

Management Catchments are the unit of geography for which action plans are drafted when implementing the WFD. WFD Management Catchments have been delineated by using WFD River Water Body Catchments as “building blocks” that have been aggregated together within a GIS, ensuring that WFD rivers do not intersect boundaries (WFD River Water Body Catchments were delineated through use of flow data and a digital terrain model run through a hydrological model). Transitional and coastal waters were also combined into areas representing Management 'Catchments' for coastal areas. This process was conducted using expert judgement. WFD Management Catchments have an action plan published that relates to all water bodies that fall within its boundaries.

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_Surface_Water_Management_Catchments_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.

See the Environment Agency's Water Hub for more information (link below). Attribution statement: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2026. All rights reserved.