As a port Bristol has always valued water and waterways, and today this relationship is maintained by the city's well-respected and progressive water companies, and by the council departments, environmental groups and local volunteers that look after rivers, wetlands and the Floating Harbour.

The city council's Environment & Sustainability Unit routinely checks the quality of waterways, including the Floating Harbour, through its monitoring network. It also runs a number of local initiatives to protect & improve the waterways of Bristol, which come under the umbrella of Bristol Living Rivers. An important element of this wide-ranging project involves raising awareness and encouraging people to enjoy their local rivers and streams, some of which are not easy to find.

In its work the council cooperates both with the Environment Agency and Avon Wildlife Trust, and with the groups set up by local people to maintain and enhance local streams.

Conservation work also involves local and regional water companies. Bristol Water has been involved in a long-term campaign to save the UK's only native crayfish, while Wessex Water produced the first corporate Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) to be modelled on the UKBAP.

Bristol Water was recently placed in the top three UK water companies and the best in the West of England, with particular emphasis on its success in meeting leakage performance targets. Since energy is required to process and pump water, the repair of leaks is an important efficiency measure.
Wessex Water has gone a step further, with a detailed sustainability programme that aims to make the company's activities carbon-neutral and zero-waste by 2020. Like Bristol City Council, the company was among the winners in the Regen SW awards last year, for its pioneering installation of an Acid Phase Digester in Avonmouth.