OS Open Rivers

OS Open Rivers provides an open dataset of the high-level view of watercourses in Great Britain. It contains over 144 000km of water bodies, watercourses, freshwater rivers, tidal estuaries and canals. OS Open Rivers can be used to monitor and manage water quality, flow and levels in rivers and streams.

This product is updated every six months

View documentationFree to use for everyone
Data access
  • Download
Data structure
  • Vector
Format
  • ESRI Shapefile
  • GeoPackage
  • GML
  • Vector Tiles

What OS Open Rivers provides you with

Solve challenges

Model simple what-if scenarios. OS Open Rivers lets you answer questions like ‘which rivers would be affected by a toxic discharge from this site?

Water quality data

For sharing water quality data, this is ideal. OS Open Rivers lets you tag information with the river IDs used by environment agencies so everybody can use it.

Comprehensive map data

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.

Use cases

  • Regional level environmental impact assessments. 
  • Enables environmental agencies and researchers to monitor water flow, levels and quality across catchment areas. 
  • Can be used in backdrop mapping. 

OS Open Rivers provides an open dataset of the high-level view of watercourses in Great Britain. It contains over 144 000km of water bodies, watercourses, freshwater rivers, tidal estuaries and canals. OS Open Rivers can be used to monitor and manage water quality, flow and levels in rivers and streams.

This product is updated every six months

View documentationFree to use for everyone
Data access
  • Download
Data structure
  • Vector
Format
  • ESRI Shapefile
  • GeoPackage
  • GML
  • Vector Tiles

  • OS Water Network

    Conduct water mapping with a three-dimensional structured link and node network of watercourses across Great Britain.

  • OS Water Features

    See water network and river network data across Great Britain, including water area features such as watercourses, lakes, drains, springs, and intertidal watercourses.