Greater Water-parsnip (Sium latifolium)

Key Details

Taxonomic Groups: Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant
Red List Status: Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(nr)]
D5 Status: Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022)
Section 41 Status: (not listed)
Taxa Included Synonym: (none)
UKSI Recommended Name: Sium latifolium
UKSI Recommended Authority: L.
UKSI Recommended Qualifier: (none specified)
Red List Citation: in Stroh et al., 2014
Notes on taxonomy/listing: (none)

Criteria

Question 1: Does species need conservation or recovery in England?
Response: Yes
Justification: EN; but still widespread and probably under-recorded; a past and continuing decline though
Question 2: Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions?
Response: Yes
Justification: Although will benefit from landscape-scale approaches, insight is needed into its reproductive and dispersal strategies
Question 3: At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages?
Response: Yes
Justification: Would benefit from landscape-scale restoration of natural river functionality and wetland re-wildling

Species Assessment

Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): 5. Remedial action identified
Recovery potential/expectation: Medium-high
National Monitoring Resource: Opportunistic - insufficient
Species Comments: Although widespread, and declines largely understood, its fate cannot be predicted with confidence

Key Actions

Key Action 1

Proposed Action: Carry out ecological investigation into requirements

Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood

Action type: Scientific research

Duration: 2 years

Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites

High priority sites:

Comments:

Key Action 2

Proposed Action: Based on Action 1, prepare a conservation strategy

Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified

Action type: Other (specify in comments)

Duration: 1 year

Scale of Implementation: National

High priority sites:

Comments: A thought-through strategy is needed that matches solutions to the threats

Key Action 3

Proposed Action: Foster good water quality in rivers through better catchment management and restrictions on point source pollution, particularly nitrates

Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified

Action type: Landscape/catchment/marine management

Duration: >10 years

Scale of Implementation: National

High priority sites: Everywhere

Comments:

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Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.