The line graph illustrates the proportion of river water in UK rivers that are considered to have good chemical standards over the 12 years, from 1990 to 2002.
Overall, it is clear that the proportion of river water in all four regions except Wales showed an upward trend. Wales started with the highest percentage but ended in second place, Northern Ireland had the most significant improvement, rising from third place to finish as the highest alongside Scotland by the end of the year,
The data reveals that both Scotland and Northern Ireland experienced a significant improvement over the twenty years, particularly Northern Ireland starting with 92% good quality of river water in 1990. Despite having experienced a gradual decrease from 92% to 86 % in the next year it then stabilized and improved, rising by 12 percentage points in 1994. After that, it decreased dramatically reaching its lowest point in 1996, falling to 83%, the lowest it had been during the entire period. Then it saw a gradual increase till the end of the period becoming one of the regions with the highest water quality standards. As for Scotland, it started the year with a percentage of 95 in chemical water quality and remained stable until 1998, with no noticeable changes at all during that time. Following this it continued to improve becoming the region with the highest quality water by 2000 at 98% which then stayed the same till the end of the period.
As for Wales, it started with a percentage of 95 in chemical water quality and remained stable until 1998, after which it saw a slight decline ending the period at 98%. On the other hand, England showed improvement over the years It started the year at 83% after which it increased by over 85 percent from 1992 to 1994 but it then again decreased slightly. Even though it saw a significant increase next 2 years It stayed completely stable till the end of the time frame.