The warning comes as The Rivers Trust’s new State of Our Rivers Report 2026 finds there has been no overall improvement in the health of England’s rivers since 2024. It adds that none of England’s almost 4,000 river stretches achieves good or high overall health, while just 15 per cent reaches good or high ecological status.
Dave Rumble, chief executive of Wessex Rivers Trust, said people in and around Salisbury were fortunate to live alongside “one of the finest examples of a globally rare chalk stream”, but warned the city’s waterways face a number of pressures.
England is home to around 85 per cent of the world’s chalk streams, many of which are found across Wessex.
Dave Rumble (Image: Wessex Rivers Trust)
Mr Rumble said: “If you live in the Salisbury area, you will not fail to see that the river has been engineered.
“It’s been put over weirs and under roads and bridges. It’s been straightened, and the banks have been replaced by concrete or metal girders and so on.
“So it’s not a natural system; it’s an engineered system, and that does create problems in the channel.”
He said weirs could prevent salmon and other fish moving freely along rivers, while also causing silt to build up and smother the clean gravel associated with healthy chalk streams.
Pollution is another concern, with phosphorus entering waterways from sewage treatment works, agricultural run-off and highways potentially encouraging algae which smothers natural river vegetation.
Nationally, the report identifies chemicals, phosphates and treated sewage among the continuing threats to rivers, while describing climate change as a “threat multiplier” which makes other pressures worse.
Mr Rumble said the effects of a changing climate were already being detected locally.
“Climate change is really taking its hold,”
“We at Wessex Rivers Trust have got a long-term data set on river temperatures, and we’re finding that the last set of data we’ve looked at from this year is higher than ever.”
Higher water temperatures mean less dissolved oxygen, he said, posing a particular threat to vulnerable fish and other wildlife.
Water quality also has consequences for people. Mr Rumble said testing associated with inland bathing waters around Salisbury had at times found unsafe limits, with potential sources including sewage treatment works, incorrectly connected household drains and, in some cases, livestock.
Despite the concerns, he said restoration work provided reasons for optimism, pointing to river restoration at the Countess site in Amesbury as an example of progress.
He added: “We’ve got nationally, globally rare ecosystems on our doorstep. I think that gives people a sense of pride in what we have.
“Ultimately, we depend on healthy rivers for our water supply, for protection from flooding and amelioration of drought.
“A healthy river is a healthy society.”