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Main rivers are watercourses shown on the statutory main river maps held by the Environment Agency and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (in England) and Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Assembly Government (in Wales).

Supply format: Shape file / Tab / GML and other

Data availability: Available under the Open Government Licence (OGL).

Other conditions may apply and these are available via the download site.

Charge: No charge.

A continuous centreline network of rivers, canals and field drains for Great Britain. The Centre for Ecology & Hydrology’s 1:50,000 watercourse network was derived from Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 maps and was the first continuous digital river network to be produced for Great Britain.

The 1:50,000 watercourses has been used to define flow paths in CEH's Integrated Hydrological Digital Terrain Model (IHDTM), which in turn is used to define drainage paths in the Flood Estimation Handbook CD-ROM.