Not a pretty sight

Sadly, the image above was taken last Tuesday only 3 miles from the source of the Wylye. The river here should be crystal clear running over clean gravel, but instead the river bed is covered with this revolting algae and the sparse ranunculus is choked with sediment. The spot where this shot was taken with my underwater compact camera is only two hundred metres from a dairy farm beside the river and fifteen metres from the outlet from a cress farm. 
My book is mainly a photographic record of and lay guide to our wonderful, rare and precious chalk streams and to highlight the rich variety of wildlife they support. My aim is to illustrate why they should be preserved. At the end of the book however, I have a section on the threats they face. This stark image demonstrates this all too well.