The National River Flow Archive is the primary archive of daily and peak river flows for the United Kingdom. The archive incorporates daily, monthly and flood peak data from over 1500 gauging stations. The NRFA holds a wide range of hydrological information to assist in the understanding and interpretation of measured river flows. In addition to time series of gauged river flow, the data centre maintains hydrometric information relating to the gauging stations and the catchments they command and data quantifying other parts of the hydrological cycle.
About Data
NRFA Glossary
A glossary of terms and abbreviations commonly used by the NRFA is provided here.
Sources of other Related Hydrometric Data
In addition to the NRFA holdings, users may wish to utilise a wide range of other related information and data sources, including:
The UK Water Resources Portal
The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology has launched a new web portal that allows users to assess information about the latest hydrological situation and drought conditions across the country in near-real-time. The new portal offers dynamic, interactive situation monitoring, mapping and plotting of rainfall, river flow and soil moisture measurements, with some data being updated daily.
It features live data from UKCEH's COSMOS-UK soil moisture monitoring stations, while river flows across England are fed in from the new Environment Agency hydrological data service and monthly data for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The National Groundwater Level Archive
The National Groundwater Level Archive (NGLA) is maintained by the British Geological Survey at Wallingford and holds water level data for around 170 wells and boreholes throughout the United Kingdom. The close co-operation of the NGLA and the NRFA increases the utility of data from both archives. For more information on the NGLA data click here.
The NGLA is a component of the comprehensive geological, hydrogeological and geophysical data holdings of the British Geological Survey; click here for further details.
Other UKCEH Datasets and Publications
In addition to the National River Flow Archive, the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology maintains a large environment data holding. Further information can be found under the Environmental Information Data Centre pages. Details of hydrological datasets available under licence from UKCEH can be found here.
Other NERC Data Centres
The Natural Environment Research Council maintains a number of data centres in a number of areas of environmental science. More details can be found here.
