{"access":"Large amounts of gauging station information, river flow statistics and catchment maps are available to search and view through the NRFA website. The NRFA enquiries and data retrievals service is able to provide advice on data holdings and guidance. nrfa@ceh.ac.uk\n\nData for use in WINFAP is provided by the National River Flow Archive.  WINFAP enables you to estimate peak flows and flood frequency curves for gauged and ungauged catchments, using the latest FEH methods.","capabilities":"The NRFA acts as the main focal point for hydrometric data in the UK, providing stewardship of, and access to, daily, monthly and flood peak river flow data from over 1,500 gauging stations across the UK.  The NRFA collates, quality controls, and archives hydrometric data from gauging station networks across the UK including the extensive networks operated by the main UK Measuring Authorities; the Environment Agency (England), Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and for Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure - Rivers. NRFA data also include catchment rainfall totals, derived from Met Office data, and various spatial data sets (e.g. digital elevation data, land cover, geology and hydrogeology), developed by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and the British Geological Survey (BGS).  The NRFA supports the hydrometric monitoring activities of our partner organisations and offers independent, authoritative commentary on issues related to river flow measurement.","description":"The purpose of the NRFA is to collate, quality control, and archive hydrometric data from gauging station networks across the UK including the extensive networks operated by the Environment Agency (England), Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and for Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure - Rivers.  The National River Flow Archive (NRFA) is the UK’s focal point for river flow data.  The NRFA is complemented by the National Hydrological Monitoring Programme (NHMP), which provides authoritative commentary on current hydrological conditions and the status of water resources.","fundingSources":"Environment Agency, Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Department for Infrastructure - Rivers Northern Ireland","id":"6be51cee-fd5a-4a69-b313-a61ac98064f6","infrastructureCategory":{"value":"data","description":"Environmental data and information","infrastructureClass":"Digital infrastructures","uri":"http://vocabs.ceh.ac.uk/ri/data"},"infrastructureChallenge":[{"value":"Climate change: adaptation"},{"value":"Pollution","uri":"http://vocab.ceh.ac.uk/ri#Pollution"}],"lifecycle":"The first NRFA gauging station was opened in 1841, there are now 1602 gauging stations across the UK, and 69,000 years worth of daily flow data has been collected to date (to end of September 2021).  At a national scale the management of hydrological data within the UK has been undertaken within a number of institutions beginning with the Inland Water Survey in the 1930s and 1940s. Responsibility passed to the Surface Water Survey of Great Britain in the 1950s, and, from 1964, the Water Resources Board; the latter was responsible for a rapid growth in the gauging station network and creation of a computer-based National River Flow Archive. In 1974 the work of collecting and publishing surface water information then passed to the newly created Water Data Unit of the Department of the Environment (DoE). In 1982 the Surface Water Archive was transferred to NERC and run within the Institute of Hydrology, now the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. A more detailed description of the history and evolution of river flow measurement and the management of river flow data can be found in the 1985 Yearbook article Inland water surveying in the United Kingdom - a short history. \n\nThe National River Flow Archive, and its precursor organisations, traditionally focused on the provision of daily and monthly river flow data. In 2014, the provision of UK wide flood peak data was transferred to the NRFA to enable fully integrated delivery of both key national datasets.","metadataDate":"2025-04-09T09:24:17","onlineResources":[{"url":"https://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/","name":"NRFA website","function":"website","type":"OTHER"},{"url":"https://eidc.ceh.ac.uk/images/browsegraphics/nrfa.png","name":"NRFA logo","function":"image","type":"OTHER"}],"owners":[{"displayName":"Isabella Tindall","organisationName":"UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology","organisationIdentifier":"https://ror.org/00pggkr55","role":"owner","email":"nrfa@ceh.ac.uk","address":{"city":"Wallingford"},"fullName":"Isabella Tindall"}],"partners":"The NRFA is mandated by UK government (Defra) and the devolved administrations of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales to maintain and provide access to a comprehensive database of the country’s river flows and provide information on water resources nationally. Environment Agency (England), Natural Resources Wales, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and for Northern Ireland, the Department for Infrastructure - Rivers.\n\nThe UK Surface and Groundwater Archives (SAGA) Committee was set up in 1982 following the transfer of the national surface and groundwater archive to the Institute of Hydrology (now the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology) and British Geological Survey. The liaison committee provides a forum for discussion between stakeholders in UK hydrometric monitoring and helps impart a strategic overview of the activities of the National River Flow Archive (NRFA) and National Groundwater Level Archive (NGLA).","resourceIdentifiers":[{"code":"https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/6be51cee-fd5a-4a69-b313-a61ac98064f6"}],"scienceArea":"Water Resources","title":"National River Flow Archive (NRFA)","type":"infrastructureRecord","uniqueness":"The National River Flow Archive is the primary archive of daily and peak river flows for the United Kingdom.","uri":"https://catalogue.ceh.ac.uk/id/6be51cee-fd5a-4a69-b313-a61ac98064f6","users":["The archive serves a wide user community both in the United Kingdom and overseas, incorporating water management professionals, scientific researchers, educational users, the media, national government bodies and international organizations.  The NRFA provides assistance and advice to several parts of the UK Government in relation to national and international reporting requirements for hydrological statistics.  Much of the data and statistics provided capitalise on the NHMP and offer Government Departments and Agencies independent assessments of water resources and other hydrological statistics at a national scale. The NRFA regularly provides data updates, summary information and reports to such organisations as the WMO Global Runoff Data Centre, the European Environment Agency, Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Communities), OECD (the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), and the OSPAR Commission. This enables users worldwide to access recent flow records and providing associated metadata which are vital to ensuring that the data stored in large-scale depositories are fit for purpose.  The NRFA provides the UK input into a number of international hydrological data sharing initiatives, including the World Meteorological Organisation’s Global Runoff Data Centre based at the Federal Institute of Hydrology (Koblenz, Germany) and the European Water Archive (EWA).  The EWA is a central feature of the European element of the FRIEND (Flow Regimes from International Experimental and Network Data) programme, a cross-cutting programme of the International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of UNESCO.  Through the GRDC, a sub-set of the UK flow data (representing the largest freshwater fluxes to the oceans) has been made available to the Global Terrestrial Network for River Discharge (which forms part of the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and GTN-Hydrology)."]}