When you enter the Our Rivers website you will be asked which river you want to adopt. This will be a river you know and care about. You may already be involved in work on that river, you may have already taken action for that river by responding to the Environment Agency consultation or flagging up the problems it faces to local media or you may just know your river. The point of Our Rivers is to bring everyone who knows and cares about their rivers (regardless of how much they are already doing) together as a single united voice for the country's rivers.

Everyone who takes action to adopt a river will be represented on the Our Rivers campaign map - for every person standing up for a river, a pin will appear on the map. You can stand up for as many rivers as you want but you'll need to do them one at a time (and you will need a different email adress for each). You'll get your pin after you first type the name of the river you want to stand up for into the box on the homepage, click Adopt your River and then fill in the simple form that appears. The information you submit through this form will enable us to locate your pin in the campaign map. As you are filling in the form, a small map with your pin in will appear to the right hand side. You will be able to drag this pin to your river.

Once your pin is where you want it to be, click Adopt Your River. This will take you to a page where you can build your river file. Your river file is your personal view of your river, the pressures and problems it faces, any solutions you can think of to solve those problems. You will have the option of using the information you enter simply to create your river file (to be attached to your pin on the Our Rivers campaign map) or to create your response to the Environment Agency consultation. By clicking SUBMIT at any stage of the process you will send a response to the Environment Agency (and your river file will be saved and attached to your pin). Clicking SAVE will simply save your river file to your pin. You will be able to come back to the form any time to amend/update your river file or to send your file as a consultation response. To revisit your river file you will need to Sign In (top menu on  homepage) using the password you received via email after you initially adopted your river.

The first part of the River File form prompts you to outline the problems on your river and potential solutions to those problems. This will be information that you will most likely already know. 

To respond to the questions in the second half you will need to explore the official Environment Agency consultation documents - the River Basin Management Plan for your region.  By accessing these documents you will look to identify whether the Environment Agency has correctly acknowledged the problems facing your river and the actions they are proposing to address them, then answer the questions as listed. If you can't find out what issues the Agency has identified or if you can't find the actions they are proposing for the river, be sure to check the relevant tick box on the form. It's important that the Agency are made aware if you are unable to find the information relevant to you within their documents.

You can choose whether you fill in only the first half or whether you complete the whole thing. You can do it all in one go, or click SAVE and come back to it. Telling the EA what you know about your river is of the utmost importance, so do be sure to click SUBMIT once you are happy with your River File.