Essential science for the water industry

The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is a world-leading centre for water science. We are home to over 500 environmental scientists, based across our four sites in Bangor, Edinburgh, Lancaster and Wallingford.

Water is a resource on which all life depends. Yet, across the planet, 30 per cent of people do not have access to clean water. Our scientists seek to understand the complex factors that affect the availability and quality of water resources now and into the future, from local to global scales.

A holistic approach to environmental challenges

Our water resources and hydro-climate specialists work with scientists studying pollution, land use, soils and biodiversity to solve complex environmental problems in a holistic way.

Meeting national strategic needs

We play a key role in meeting national strategic needs, for example:

  • We provide the industry standard method for assessing flood risk in the UK through the Flood Estimation Handbook.
  • We curate the nation’s river flow data and analyse this to provide near real-time information on the state of UK water resources.
  • Our Land Cover Map is widely used for assessing past and present land cover across the UK.
  • We carry out field monitoring and experimentation, laboratory analysis and predictive modelling to quantify the presence and impact of environmental contaminants. 

Our activities provide the state of-the-art environmental data that industries, government agencies and regulators need to manage the UK’s freshwater environment.