Safer Seas & Rivers Service
Get water quality information for your favourite surf & swim spots across 600 UK locations to check if it’s safe to enter the water.
Download the free app
Thousands of sewage discharges around the country are putting our health at risk.
That’s why we’ve made it easy to check in, search out a swim, and be able to see if the water quality is safe or if there’s a risk of entering the water
Download the free app to get live updates on the go:
Sewage Alert
Incident Alert
Pollution Risk Forecast
Poor Annual Classification
No Alert In Place
Maintenance
Out of Season
Dormant
Sewage Discharges are happening across the UK, not just at bathing waters!
See the map below for information on over 17,000 sewage overflows and their current status.
What’s the difference between the Safer Seas & Rivers Service and the Sewage Map?
The Safer Seas and Rivers Service is an alert service designed to inform water users when water quality is compromised, helping you decide whether it’s safe to enter the water. It works by using water companies and regulators real-time data to provide accurate risk assessments, giving you clear alerts about water safety based on up-to-date information.
In contrast, the Sewage Map is not an alert service. It shows the operational status of sewage overflows across the country, but it doesn’t provide enough context to help you assess whether it’s safe to enter the water. While it tells you where sewage overflows are, it doesn’t indicate where the discharge may affect water quality or pose a risk to human health.
Understanding these differences is important. It highlights why we need a national sewage alert system, not just access to public data that doesn’t serve water users’ safety needs.
SSRS FAQs
The Safer Seas and Rivers Service app puts real-time water quality and beach safety information at your fingertips. Providing alerts for over 550 locations across the UK, the service alerts users to real-time sewage discharges and pollution risks around the UK.
| Icon | Explanation |
|---|---|
 | No Water Quality Alert in Place We are receiving data for this location and have no indications of reduced water quality. |
| Sewage Alert There has been a confirmed sewage discharge that may reduce the water quality. This symbol will be in place whilst the discharge is active and will then remain in place for 48 hours after the discharge has stopped. For more information on the exact location and duration of impacting discharges, make sure to download the app for access to discharge sites and history. |
 | Pollution Risk Forecast (PRF) Bathing is not advised due to the likelihood of reduced water quality. Pollution Risk Forecasts use rainfall or other factors such as tidal information to assess the risk of a temporary reduction in bathing water quality. These alerts are only available during the bathing season. |
 | Poor Annual Classification If bathing water received a ‘poor’ rating by the regulator, bathing is not advised and a permanent alert will be in place. |
| Pollution Incident There has been a confirmed incident at this location and bathing is not advised. For example, an oil spill, burst sewage pipe or algae bloom. This data comes from the environmental regulators and will often indicate a beach closure. When an incident alert is in place, more information about the specific event will be displayed within the location profile. |
 | Out of Season This means water quality data is not available outside the bathing season. |
 | Maintenance The systems that are responsible for this location's alert are under maintenance and the water company has temporarily disabled real-time alerts. |
 | Dormant We have no real-time information about this location, but it has been identified as a popular bathing location. This location will always be dormant unless data is shared with SAS about the water quality in this location. |
Our coverage is determined by which locations we have real-time data for. We’re constantly pushing for access to more data to allow us to generate alerts at more beaches and inland locations to improve the service.
We have introduced a status called ‘dormant’ which means we can add any location to the SSRS even if there is no data for this location. Adding a location as ‘dormant’ is a great first step to getting an active alert. It means we can flag these locations to water companies and investigate if there is sewage impacting the location.
- Document the incident with photos or videos.
- Note down the location, date, and time (and smell!).
- Gather as much information as possible about the source and extent of the pollution.
Contact the Regulator
By Phone
Report the incident to the relevant environmental regulator using their 24-hour hotline numbers:
- England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland: 0800 80 70 60
- Wales: 0300 065 3000
Online Form
In England, Wales and Scotland the regulators have an online form where you can submit evidence of pollution. Click below to submit evidence via an online form.
Following these steps ensures that the incident is properly documented and reported to the authorities who can act.
During periods of reduced water quality, there is a risk of contracting infections from bacteria and viruses associated with faecal matter.
During periods of poor water quality, entering the water could put you at risk of contracting eye, ear, skin and throat infections, gastroenteritis, E. coli and hepatitis. For further information on these conditions please visit our page on “The risks of mixing with sewage”.
The Safer Seas and Rivers Service aims to provide you with the information needed to make an informed decision on whether to enter the water. We cannot guarantee your safety and can take no responsibility for any sickness or injury associated with entering the water.
If you have experienced being sick after entering the water, please refer to a medical professional immediately. You can also help us build our case study bank by reporting your sickness via our sickness report form, so we can hold those responsible to account.
UK water companies keep pollution alerts issued for varying periods, generally between 12-48 hours. Given this information, it is recommended that a safe ‘catch all’ recommendation is used which accounts for variability in pollution dispersal and the potential for pollution to remain at unsafe levels for substantial periods of time following a discharge. It is therefore recommended for the safety of water users, SAS follow the precautionary approach to keep the current alerting system in place at 48 hours.
The Safer Seas and Rivers Service aims to provide you with the information needed to make an informed decision on whether to enter the water. We cannot guarantee your safety and can take no responsibility for any sickness or injury associated with entering the water.
Water companies in England and Wales voluntarily provide us with real-time sewage alerts from sensors located on their Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs), which then automatically send alerts to the Safer Seas and Rivers Service.
In addition to the sewage alerts during the bathing season, Pollution Risk Forecasts (PRFs) are issued by the four regulators in the UK.
The status of all combined sewer overflows (CSOs) is now available on our sewage map – but this map is not an alert service. We can only add data to the Safer Seas and Rivers Service we have an indication of the impact the discharge is having, and we only have this information for bathing waters.
If your chosen location is on the app, the SSRS should still be used to assess whether it’s safe to swim. If the location you swim/surf/paddle isn’t on the SSRS OR if you plan to go further away from the bathing water (e.g. to kayak round to another cove or along a river), you can use this online map to see the activity of CSOs in the wider area.
We’re actively collaborating on a project to establish a national standard and definition for sewage alerts. Once this standard is determined, it will bring clarity to the sector, reducing confusion about which source provides the most accurate information and which service to rely on.
At Surfers Against Sewage, we don’t decide which sewer overflows affect bathing waters — we rely on information from water companies, regulators, and environmental permits to map overflow locations to beaches.
Each water company operates differently. They use different models, triggers, and alert systems. That inconsistency makes integrating their data into our national app complex. We don’t accept this patchwork approach — it puts water users at risk.
That’s why we’re actively campaigning for national standards. We’ve worked with all UK regulators and water companies on a UK-wide project to push for consistent, trusted sewage alerts. Our aim: a single standard that gives people clear, accurate information, wherever they swim.
Behind the scenes, we go further. We cross-check overflow-to-beach mappings, scrutinise water quality data, and listen to local bathers. If a model doesn’t pass our trust test, we’ll take the more cautious route — because protecting public health comes first.
Not every sewage discharge poses a risk to bathers — but all the raw discharge data is available on our Sewage Map. While that’s useful, it’s not the same as knowing whether the water is safe to swim in today. That’s why we focus on alerts that are based on risk — not just raw data.
We also know that over-alerting can damage public trust and affect local businesses. So we balance caution with care. But until we have approved, nationwide alert standards, we’ll continue doing the heavy lifting — turning confusing, inconsistent data into the UK’s most trusted sewage alert service.
If you’ve got concerns or questions about how alerts work at your local beach, we’re always happy to talk and improve. This service is for the public, and we’re here to make sure it works for you.
While some data may be available through sources like water company regional maps, these maps only show the status of CSOs (combined sewer overflows). They don’t provide alerts or give a clear picture of the potential risk. You can use this data if no alert is available but do so with caution.
Although we show a record of past incidents at each location, the Safer Seas & Rivers Service is primarily designed to provide real-time water quality information.
Sample history from the regulators can be found by clicking the links below:
Unofficial bathing waters are locations which haven’t been designated. These locations may still be popular with recreational water users but the water quality is not regularly checked and therefore does not have an annual classification. The source and impact of pollution at these locations may be unknown. Environmental regulators do not provide pollution risk forecasts for these locations, however, sewage discharge notifications are provided by water companies as a precaution.
Any coastal or inland water that is popular with bathers can be designated if it fulfils the criteria set out by DEFRA. If your favourite swimming location isn’t designated and you’d like to find out more about the process and how we can support you, you can find out more here.
In September 2022, Southern Water launched a new update to its real-time alert system, Beachbuoy, incorporating data modelling to predict if a Combined Sewer Overflow was impacting bathing waters.
Southern Water still display the discharge on their map and in their data table, but the location icons only change colour when they determine it has impacted, based on release location, duration and tidal state.
Surfers Against Sewage have chosen not to adopt the modelled impact generated by Southern Water and display alerts based on whether there is a confirmed discharge at one of the sewer overflows. We feel the impact modelling is not sufficient to be substituted for our current approach and it is due to this, you may notice a difference between what the Safer Seas and River Service displays when compared with Southern Water’s map.
We welcome efforts to improve the understanding of the impacts of sewage discharges on water quality but we require further reassurance that the tidal modelling is sufficient. We will be reviewing Southern Water’s modelling as it develops, and as they undertake an independent review to provide more reassurance.
The Anglian Water storm overflows are fitted with monitoring devices, with data fed into a telemetry system called ‘BeachAware’. BeachAware then adds an additional layer of analysis that calculates the volume of storm water being discharged alongside a coastal model that factors tidal conditions. The system then predicts how the overflow will impact bathing water quality. If it predicts a reduction in bathing water quality below the ‘Sufficient’ standard at relevant nearby beaches, an alert is automatically generated and we issue a sewage alert on the app.
Anglian Water’s model (BeachAware) calculates the volume of storm water being discharged alongside a coastal model that factors tidal conditions. A sewage alert is only raised if the system predicts a reduction in bathing water quality below the ‘Sufficient’ standard at relevant nearby beaches. Therefore, not all sewage discharges will result in BeachAware alerts, for example when the tide is taking the discharge in the opposite direction to a bathing area. This means you may see an overflow operating but no sewage alert in place. This may also result in a time difference between storm overflows and the issuing of BeachAware alerts, as tides may initially move any plume away from the designated bathing water.
SAS remove an alert after a 48 hour period with no further modelled impacts on water quality. Anglian Water use 24 hours.
We’ve started showing sewage for Scotland on the Safer Seas & Rivers Service. For the first time, users can see when a sewage overflow within 2km of a designated bathing water —based on data from Scottish Water’s Near Real-Time Overflow Map.
We’ve defined a as any discharge from an overflow within 2km of a bathing site. This follows the same approach Scottish Water intends to use when designated bathing waters are added to the NRT map and with the search proximity based on the monitoring prioritisation methodology co-created with SEPA.
Right now, no UK water company has a consistent model for understanding these impacts—and that’s exactly why we’re campaigning for national standards.
Until then, we believe it’s better to give people the best available information—however limited—while continuing to fight for a system that truly protects swimmers, surfers, and sea lovers in Scotland.
