Industrialisation caused the river and the Dearne and Dove Canal, to become grossly polluted in the early nineteenth century and fish populations died.

Channel engineering was carried out at Denaby in the 1990s, to re-introduce bends, deep pools and shallow gravel riffles, to assist fish spawning.

Within around 1.9 miles (3 km), it reaches the A635 Barnsley Road bridge at Denby Dale, by which time it has dropped below the 175-metre (574 ft) contour, and its flow has been swelled by several springs and the output of Park Dike.

Park Gate Dike swells the flow,[1] before a double-arched skew bridge built in the early 19th century carries the A636 over the channel.

[1] On the opposite side of the channel are the Bolton Ings washlands, which cover 110 acres (45 ha) and have been acquired by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

In 2011, the site was in its early stages of development, but the reedbeds have attracted spoonbills and avocets, and are expected to act as a breeding ground for bitterns in due course.

[1] In 1903 the junction of the river with the Don was adjacent to the railway sidings of the Cadeby Main colliery,[9] but by 1930 it had been moved further upstream, much closer to its present location.

[12] By the 1950s, the course of the river near its mouth had been affected by subsidence from coal mining, and the lowering of the channel resulted in much of the surrounding land being regularly flooded.

Some of the storage capacity was lost as a result of mining schemes, and a regulator was installed at Bolton in 1972, allowing the flow to be restricted by a sluice gate.

Some damage to the Houghton washlands resulted from the extremely high water levels, which overtopped the banks and caused erosion to take place.

[16] Following the floods, a reassessment of the function of the regulators was carried out, and in view of the costs of maintaining them, the Environment Agency intend to remove them once some reconfiguration of the river channel has been completed.

Industrial development of the valley consisted of several deep coal mines, but they were fairly small, and did not significantly pollute the river.

The opening of the Dearne and Dove Canal in 1810 had serious impacts on the river, as it provided a way to transport the coal to Sheffield and Rotherham, where it was used in the steelworks.

[18] Parts of the upper river were well suited to the woollen trade, and mills developed in the 19th century, at Denby Dale, Scissett and Clayton West.

As early as 1896, the West Riding River Board was working hard to improve the situation, and achieved limited success by 1902, when they produced a report.

A small population of brown trout had survived in the upper 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of the river, but could not proceed downstream due to dams erected for the woollen mills.

By 1992, there was evidence that the fish were breeding in the river, and naturally bred brown trout were found between Denby Dale and Clayton West in 1994, for the first time in over 100 years.

[22] The river below Clayton West ceases to be a shallow, fast-flowing watercourse, and consists of deeper pools with a slower flow, which is suitable for various coarse fish as well as trout.

By 1974, a modest improvement in water quality had been achieved by treatment of industrial effluent, and some fish managed to exist below the weir at the Star Paper Mill in Barnsley.

A survey in 1982 found gudgeon, minnow and three-spined stickleback, which had increased by 1985, and over 10,000 coarse fish were released as part of a restocking programme.

As a result, the final effluent was a deep red colour, and was a major factor in the poor biochemical oxygen demand ratings for the river.

These features are needed by dace and barbel for successful spawning, and prevent young fish from being washed downstream in flood conditions.

[25] Further improvements to the Lundwood sewage treatment works began in 2007 to enable it to comply with the Freshwater Fish Directive, and although the site was inundated during the floods of 2007, the scheme, which cost £8 million, was completed in 2008.

To celebrate the opening of the new works, the poet Ian McMillan was asked to run a poetry workshop at Littleworth Grange Primary Learning Centre, where children completed a poem about water treatment for which he supplied the first two lines.

Like most rivers in the UK, the chemical status changed from good to fail in 2019, due to the presence of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE), perfluorooctane sulphonate (PFOS), mercury compounds and cypermethrin, none of which had previously been included in the assessment.