Rising waters | Rooted solutions
York rivers trail launches this summer
The York rivers trail: the rivers and us has launched this summer (2026), offering a new way to explore the River Ouse in York.
Co-designed with communities, schools and artists, the trail brings together art, storytelling and digital experiences to help people understand how York lives with water - and how upstream and downstream places are connected.
The York rivers trail: the rivers and us has launched this summer, offering residents and visitors a new way to explore the River Ouse in York and discover how water shapes the city, its communities and its future. The trail is a walking and wheeling experience that brings together art, storytelling and digital experiences to help people understand how York lives with water. It also builds on earlier Ousewem work charting the trail’s development, from bringing York’s rivers to life through creativity and climate action to shaping York’s rivers trail together with residents, visitors and partners.
Following the river through parks, gardens and historic spaces, the trail invites people to explore where water comes from, where it goes, and how what happens upstream affects life downstream. That catchment-wide perspective is central to the trail and to Ousewem’s wider work, including From upstream to downstream: how catchments connect communities, which explains why shared understanding of river systems matters for long-term flood resilience.
About York rivers trail
The York rivers trail is not a single fixed route in the traditional sense. Instead, it is a flexible trail experience made up of different riverside locations, stories and ways of exploring. Visitors can discover stops including Homestead Park, Leeman Park, Museum Gardens, North Street Gardens, Tower Gardens and Rowntree Park, each offering a different perspective on how York lives with water - from biodiversity and planting to history, trade, flood protection and climate adaptation.
This approach reflects the project’s original ambition: to create a public-facing trail that connects people with rivers, landscapes and community action. Ousewem first introduced that vision in Bringing York’s rivers to life through creativity and climate action, where the route was described as a way to help residents, schools and visitors understand how flood resilience and nature-based solutions can make a difference both upstream and in the city itself.
Why the trail matters
York is built on a floodplain, and rivers have shaped the city’s history, landscape and daily life for centuries. Today, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of flooding, making it even more important to help people understand how adaptation and resilience work in practice. The York rivers trail helps make those ideas visible and accessible in familiar public spaces.
The trail explores how nature-based solutions - such as tree planting, habitat restoration and working with natural processes - can help support flood resilience alongside more traditional approaches. It also shows how York is connected to the wider Swale, Ure, Nidd and Upper Ouse catchment, where action upstream can influence communities further downstream. This wider systems view sits behind Ousewem’s evidence-led work, including From floods to decisions: why modelling matters for York and North Yorkshire and Flood resilience is about systems, not single solutions.
Art, storytelling and digital experiences
A key feature of the trail is the way it combines practical environmental learning with creative engagement. Along the route, visitors will find interpretation, installations and opportunities to pause, reflect and notice more about the river and surrounding landscape. There are also sculptural viewing frames at selected locations including Leeman Park and Tower Gardens, designed as moments to look more closely at the places, stories and histories connected to the river.
The trail also includes Talk to the river, an interactive experience powered by Hello Lamp Post. By scanning QR codes at key points, visitors can use their phones to explore stories, prompts and reflections linked to their location. Together, these creative and digital elements help make the river feel more immediate, conversational and relevant to everyday experience.
This creative approach has been part of the trail from the beginning. Ousewem’s earlier coverage of shaping river stories on the River Ouse and shaping the trail together with residents, visitors and partners shows how public engagement, reflection and shared storytelling have helped define the trail as it has evolved.
Schools and learning
The York rivers trail is also supported by the rivers and us toolkit, a curriculum-linked resource for primary schools in York and North Yorkshire. The toolkit helps children explore how rivers and catchments work, the causes and impacts of flooding, how nature can help manage water, and how communities respond to climate change. By linking classroom learning with real places along the river, it supports place-based learning across science, geography, history and creativity.
This schools programme has been documented across a series of Ousewem news stories, including How York’s schools are shaping the York’s rivers trail and York rivers trail: schools and creativity – bringing rivers to life. Together, those updates show how workshops, pilots, artists and curriculum planning have helped ensure that children’s ideas and creativity are embedded in the wider trail experience.
Part of Ousewem’s wider work
Although rooted in York, the trail is part of something much bigger. Ousewem works across the Swale, Ure, Nidd and Upper Ouse catchments to support natural flood management, nature-based solutions and long-term flood resilience. The York rivers trail helps bring that wider story into the public realm by turning complex ideas about rivers, resilience and catchment connections into something people can experience directly.
That means the trail is more than a visitor experience. It is a public-facing expression of resilience in action: rooted in place, shaped by communities, and connected to the broader evidence, partnership working and systems thinking that underpin Ousewem’s work across York and North Yorkshire.
Explore the York rivers trail
Whether you are taking a short riverside walk, visiting one stop, exploring several sections of the trail, engaging with Talk to the river, or discovering the schools strand through the rivers and us toolkit, the York rivers trail offers a new way to connect with the river and the city around it. This is a trail about the rivers and us - about connection, curiosity, resilience and shared futures.
Find out more about the York rivers trail and discover how York’s rivers connect people, place and flood resilience - visit: www.york.gov.uk/YorkRiversTrail.
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