Important Freshwater Areas

The Freshwater Network has been created using two building blocks: Important Freshwater Areas and Wetland Opportunity Areas. Important Freshwater Areas are the remaining high-quality places, which will be protected and maintained.

Biodiversity hotspots where we can make a difference

Our priority is to protect the best freshwater sites – the ‘good bits’ that are home to the richest communities of sensitive and vulnerable plants and animals, including freshwater Species of Conservation Concern. These are the areas that are essential for maintaining the diversity of freshwater life.

Britain still has some of the highest-quality freshwater habitats in Europe, but their wildlife is isolated and increasingly under threat. Stopping the decline of these sites will protect the rare plants and animals that often make these places special, providing the source for recovery across the rest of the landscape.

From stretches of rivers that are home to threatened species like Loddon Pondweed and Freshwater Pearl Mussel, to tiny calcareous springs and flushes supporting endangered aquatic craneflies and rare mosses, Important Freshwater Areas represent the most critically important habitats for freshwater wildlife.

They include clusters of unpolluted ponds where endangered plants, such as Lesser Water-plantain, are still hanging on, headwater streams supporting populations of native White-clawed Crayfish and gravel pits with stoneworts, which can only survive in exceptionally clean waters. Important Freshwater Areas can be individual sites, groups of sites or networks of many different freshwater habitat types.

Download the Freshwater Network brochure
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- Tadpole Shrimp (Triops cancriformis) - one of Britain's most endangered animals. Copyright Neil Phillips

Mapping Important Freshwater Areas

To reverse the decline in freshwater biodiversity, we know that we need to protect the best remaining habitats. But there is still no single map or database which identifies the most important sites for freshwater wildlife.

We are now working with our partners to carry out Important Freshwater Area assessments. Identifying these high-quality places across the UK, using criteria agreed by national experts and specialists, means these habitats can be recognised in conservation policy and planning. Important Freshwater Areas then need targeted management and special protection to ensure we don’t lose the best remaining habitats for freshwater biodiversity.

Blue and black damselfly resting on a stem.
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- Southern Damselfly at Cothill Fen, Oxfordshire. Photo copyright Alan S.L. Leung.

Building the Freshwater Network

Find out more about how we’re creating, restoring and protecting habitats in Important Freshwater Areas.

Aerial view of valley with a river
Ock and Thame Farmers: Freshwaters and Floodplain Restoration

We’re delivering landscape recovery and building the Freshwater Network across two lowland catchments.

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Plant with red and yellow spokes in shallow water, sparkling in the sunlight.
New Forest Catchment Partnership

We’re working in partnership to protect the New Forest’s internationally-significant freshwater habitats in Important Freshwater Areas.

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Aerial view of fen with trees around it.
Oxfordshire Fens project

We’re protecting the county’s internationally-significant alkaline fen habitat to restore these Important Freshwater Areas.

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Wetland Opportunity Areas

Wetland Opportunity Areas are the places where freshwater habitats can be created and restored to expand and link Important Freshwater Areas. Here, we’ll establish high-quality freshwater and wetland habitats so wildlife can recolonise from remaining biodiversity hotspots.

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Two men standing in a shallow waterbody, looking at plants and invertebrates in the water.
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- David Morris (Freshwater Habitats Trust) and Richard Watson (National Trust) at the newly-created floodplain wetland mosaic habitats at National Trust Coleshill on the Oxfordshire-Wiltshire border.