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Rivers and transitional waters are both worse as proportion of length or area than as proportion of total number (comparing the upper and lower panels of figure 5.1 for each water category), whereas for lakes and coastal waters the picture is opposite. This means that for lakes and coastal waters the large water bodies are generally in better status than the smaller ones, whereas the largest rivers and transitional water bodies are in worse status than the smaller ones. The reason for this difference may be that the largest lakes and coastal waters have larger volumes of water and thus dilute the pollution to a larger extent than smaller water bodies, whereas large rivers and transitional waters are subject to more uses and are often located in areas with more pressures than the smaller ones.