The world's rivers have never been under such stress. Even in the UK and Ireland, rivers are under huge pressure from human activities.

The UK Rivers Network brings people together to create a better future for rivers and inland waters in the UK and Ireland.

How this website works

It's really easy to get involved in helping your local river. Here are five simple things you can do:

What's new?

Photo: The River Frome, Dorset, in summer.

Here are some new things on our website and elsewhere...

• Flooding: What to do: The BBC offers a handy summary of official advice for people unlucky enough to be caught by flooding.
• River walks and cycle rides: We've got well over 100 river walks and cycle rides on our new page. Please add in any more great watery walks you know about.
• Forthcoming river events: From pond dips and canal walks to litter picks and full-on river festivals, there are dozens of river-related events going on all over the country virtually all year round. Our new events page tells you all about them—and lets you add more events of your own.
• Introduction to rivers: A simple new guide to the basic features of rivers from Explain that Stuff!
• If you're concerned about dwindling fish stocks in our seas (and if not, you jolly well should be), take a look at the brilliantly helpful MCS Fish Online website. It lists fish you can eat and fish you should avoid.

Don't forget these older pages:

• We're continuing to develop our educational pages. New for 2009, we've collected together a page of climate change and global warming photos to add to our very popular pollution photos and river photos for students and researchers.
• Need to find out about water pollution? Check out our ever-popular Pollution page. Explain that Stuff! also have a good introductory article about water pollution.
• Want to get involved with local river conservation projects? Take a look at our ever-popular Network page. We've now (finally) got an interactive map of all the UK river groups we know about. The page is now in wiki-format so you can add or change details of groups yourself.

Our website has been bringing you the latest UK river headlines, at least once a week, since 1999. If you use RSS (a way of automatically being notified when websites you follow are updated), why not try our new river news RSS feed. Feel free to serve news on your own website using our feed, but please would you be kind enough to make a link back to this page if you do so (it helps other people to discover us too).

Mon, 8 Feb 2010: Twice as many Welsh get free flood warnings: The number of people entitled to free flood warnings will rise from 47,000 to 90,000 in a bid to cut flood damage.

Mon, 8 Feb 2010: Butterflies prefer hills: Hilly areas with a mixture of habitats are generally better for butterflies, new research has found.

Sun, 7 Feb 2010: Anglers help monitor stocks in the Tyne: The Environment Agency is calling on anglers to help collect scales from salmon and sea trout to assess the health of fish in the River Tyne.

Thu, 4 Feb 2010: Britain's wildlife ponds are in a 'terrible state': A report published by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology and Pond Conservation shows that 80% of ponds in England and Wales are in a 'poor' or 'very poor' condition.

Thu, 4 Feb 2010: Studying flooding: The Environment Agency shows off its huge new flood test tank to Guardian correspondent Alok Jha. Read more from the Environment Agency.

Wed, 3 Feb 2010: Government publishes UK Marine Science Strategy:The Government has today published a 15 year strategy to deliver world class marine science which will inform decisions on food and energy security, managing the seas sustainably and climate change. Key features include understanding how the marine ecosystem functions; responding to climate change and its interaction with the marine environment; and sustaining and increasing ecosystem benefits.

Wed, 3 Feb 2010: Cornish flood meadow restoration a success for wildlife: A variety of wildlife including otter, kingfisher, lapwing and curlew have benefited from a habitat restoration project on the Camel estuary in Cornwall.

Tue, 2 Feb 2010: Help raise funds for bugs!: Do a fun run, hold a cake-bake, do a sponsored skip, run a half-marathon! This is the International Year of Biodiversity and as we celebrate wildlife across the UK, Buglife is asking us to do something fun, sporty, creative or just plain silly to help conserve bugs.

Tue, 2 Feb 2010: Don't pull the plug on world's wetlands: World Wetlands Day highlights the bonds between wetlands, biodiversity and climate change. "Caring for wetlands is part of the solution to climate change", said Melanie Heath, Senior Advisor on Climate Change at BirdLife. "If we manage them well, wetland ecosystems and their biodiversity have a vital role to play in mitigating against, and adapting to, climate change".

Thu, 28 Jan 2010: Celebs and architects launch competition to design Heathrow fortress: Britain's leading architects are being invited by Greenpeace to enter a competition to design an impenetrable fortress to be built on the land earmarked for a third runway at Heathrow. The fortress will be constructed at the centre of the site in west London where airport operator BAA hopes to construct a £7bn runway and sixth terminal.

More river news...