Riparian Ownership Information
Owning and maintaining a watercourse
To help you navigate through existing guidance on owning and maintaining a watercourse, this webpage signposts to key advice to support rural homeowners, communities, businesses, farmers and growers.
Your Watercourse: Rights and Roles
What is a watercourse?
A watercourse can be any stream of water flowing in a defined channel or through an underground pipe or culvert. It can be small or wide, natural, or artificial and includes channels that are dry for long periods of time and may not flow every year. A dry channel only filled during temporary flooding is not a watercourse.
The Environment Agency’s comprehensive guide aimed at ‘riparian landowners’, Your watercourse: rights and roles can be downloaded here. If you have a watercourse running next to or through your land, this guidance is relevant to you.
The guide covers your responsibilities, the rules to follow for watercourses on or near your property, and permissions you need to do work around them.
You can also access a summary of the guidance on GOV.UK.
What does the guide cover?
Clarification of your roles and responsibilities: how these are shared between riparian landowners and other organisations such as the Environment Agency, lead local flood authorities, councils, water companies and internal drainage boards.
Sustainable maintenance of watercourses: useful guidance on how to maintain your watercourse sustainably. This includes considerations for protecting the natural environment and ensuring the health of the watercourse.
Permitting of works: summarises guidance on the permitting process for any work you might want to do on your watercourse and where to find further information and support.
Collaborative efforts to reduce flood risk: shows how you can work with others to reduce flood risk and protect and enhance the natural environment of our rivers and streams.
Who is the riparian owner?
Where a watercourse runs adjacent to or through your land you will be what is termed a ‘riparian landowner’. Rivers in England are classified as a ‘main river’ or an ‘ordinary watercourse’.
What is a main river?
Main rivers are usually larger rivers and streams that have been legally designated as such. You can search this map to find out if a watercourse is a main river in England.
What is an ordinary watercourse?
Ordinary watercourses are all other rivers and streams that are not designated as a main river.
Land ownership
Land ownership can be a complex topic, including whether you own a watercourse. It is sometimes unknown, disputed, or difficult to work out, even when looking at title deeds for a property.
To find out who owns parcels of land, contact the Land Registry who hold most records: Get information about property and land: Overview - GOV.UK
A person leasing riparian land will also have riparian responsibilities, unless an agreement to the contrary has been made with the landowner.
Other useful resources
The Flood Hub
Provides several useful links in their Riparian Owner Toolkit including a basic guide to owning and managing a watercourse.
ADA (Association of Drainage Authorities)
Offer a short guide providing advice on watercourses and their management which brings together a range of helpful links.
Guidance on enabling community maintenance for local flood risk management
The Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) have published new guides to help communities to maintain drainage, watercourses and flood defences. It provides a starting point for communities and risk management authorities to work together to maintain local assets and reduce flood risk.
The outputs include a:
guide for communities on organising groups to do maintenance work on local flood risk assets
guide for risk management authorities on the benefits of working with local groups
briefing note for policy and strategy staff on how the approach fits with existing policies and regulations
The outputs are available on CIRIA’s website Enabling community maintenance for local flood risk management C821F
Planning activities on or near a river or flood defence?
You must follow the environmental permitting rules if you want to do work:
on or near a main river, flood defence structure or sea defence
in a flood plain
Important: You are breaking the law if you operate without getting the permit you need.
How to get an environmental permit for your activities on a main river
GOV.UK’s guidance covers all steps in the permitting process including:
Checking if your activity is on a main river and whether the activity is regulated
Finding out whether your activity is excluded (doesn’t require permission), exempt or requires a permit
Registering for an exemption or applying for a standard rules or bespoke permit before you start your activity
What happens after you apply for a permit
How to change, transfer or cancel your permit if required
What other laws could restrict what you can do on or near a main river or sea defence?
Byelaws (local laws applying to a specified area); contact the Environment Agency to find out about any that may apply to you.
Regional flood defence and land drainage byelaws control some activities around watercourses and flood defences; check if any apply to you.
What about activities on or near other (ordinary) watercourses?
For work on or near all other watercourses you must apply for Ordinary Watercourse Consent.
Apply by contacting either:
the internal drainage board (IDB) in your area which you can find here
your lead local flood authority through your local council or the Environment Agency general enquiries