Aquatic life under threat as pollution and warmer waters wreak havoc

Almost half of all fish species and 10% of mammals rely on rivers and lakes for survival but a combination of climate change and pollution is threatening their existence. Although scientists knew that pollution and warmer water damage life in freshwater they had not realised the combination of the two further hastens the destruction of much aquatic life, especially the diversity of small creatures which fish need for food.

Humans, as happened at the Olympic Games, can choose to avoid endangering themselves by not entering polluted water, but fish in the River Seine in Paris have no options. They are gradually being wiped out by the combination of warmer water and pollution.

In Britain the privatised water companies and poorly controlled industrial farming companies have been increasingly pouring raw sewage, animal waste and fertilisers into our waterways for decades.

There is a public outcry over this and the new government has promised to take action to improve matters but the new research makes clear that the problem is even more severe and urgent than previously thought.

Cherished trout and salmon fisheries and the already endangered eel populations require rivers to be clean and cool for their entire length for adults to breed. Many long-established coarse fisheries will also be lost.