Watercourses, Water Bodies, Rivers - Great Britain: Open Rivers

## Introduction

A free dataset showing the high-level view of watercourses in Great Britain. OS Open Rivers GIS data contains over 144,000 km of water bodies and watercourses map data. These include freshwater rivers, tidal estuaries and canals.

Coverage: Great Britain

Format: Vector

Scale: 1:15 000 to 1:30 000

Update Cycle: At least annually, normally every six months in April and October

Last Updated: October 2024

Release Note: [https://docs.os.uk/os-downloads/networks/os-open-rivers/release-notes/october-2024](https://docs.os.uk/os-downloads/networks/os-open-rivers/release-notes/october-2024)

## What's in this product?

WatercourseLink: This feature represents the alignment of a watercourse

HydroNode: This feature explicitly represents the start, end, and junctions of watercourses, and places where related real-world attribution changes have been recorded, for example, the point where a watercourse becomes tidal. The HydroNode is coincident with the ends of related links

## What is its value?

Open Rivers creates values for customers in a variety of ways including:

1. The mapping of water quality which is critical in both supporting the environmental management of coastal and riverine plants and wildlife and water quality targets for human health.
2. Access to nature and open spaces, supporting health and wellbeing targets.

## Case Studies

Environmental Management of Rivers for Natural England: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/customers/case-studies/nitrate-neutrality-solent

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