Ecological recovery in a river polluted to its sources: the River Tame in the English Midlands - Ecology of Industrial Pollution - page 257

River Trent

Chetwynd
Bridge

Lea Marston

Eagle Lane,
Tipton

Industrial Midlands and
Birmingham conurbation.
River Tame catchment

Watershed

River
Blythe

River Severn
catchment

Figure 13.1. River Tame system showing relative positions of the three sampling sites
used for this analysis. Green spots indicate EA biological sampling stations.
Red squares, the sites used in this analysis. See colour plate section .

The River Tame and its tributaries
The landscape and drainage
The Tame system drains industrial South Staffordshire, the Birmingham conur-
bation, parts of Warwickshire and Leicestershire in the English Midlands. The
River Tame itself ( Fig. 13.1 ) has most of its sources in the Middle and Upper Coal
measures of the West Midlands (Wills 1950 ). The upper part of the catchment,
known as the Black Country, probably because of the effects of industrial smoke
in the nineteenth century, comprises urban and industrial development which
reaches to the extreme upper ridge of the Tame watershed dividing the Trent
and Severn river basins. The river and many of its upper tributaries have
been grossly polluted by industrial and domestic sewage effluents for well over
150 years (Spicer 1950 ; Lester 1975 ; Harkness 1982 ). Although Birmingham was
initially the location of small industries and mills responsible for pollution of
the middle river, it was the growth of mining and industry in the Black Country
that eventually caused the major pollution to the sources.
The Tame system, upstream of its confluence with the River Trent comprises
streams and rivers with varied histories of pollution. The most polluted were