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100,000 kilometres of England’s sewer pipes were built before the mid-1960s and use an old-fashioned design that carries two kinds of waste: rainwater from street drains, and sewage from homes.

They are therefore known as ‘combined’ sewers. Combined sewers were built many decades before modern rates of population growth and climate change were understood, which means that there is often now more sewage and rainwater going into these systems than first envisaged.

Wide, shallow and crystal clear, chalk streams are rivers almost unique to England. They rise from springs, flow through chalk and their mineral-rich water is a haven for aquatic plants, insects and species including otters, kingfishers and water voles.