Water quality
Services
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Check the quality of your drinking water
Your tap water should be clear and bright - water quality advice, reporting problems, how to complain
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Check the quality of beach and bathing water in England
Find out how clean the water is on beaches and in other bathing areas in England, and if there is a problem with pollution
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Application to use herbicides in or near water
Use this form if you plan to use herbicides to control weeds in water or on the banks next to a waterbody or watercourse.
Guidance and regulation
- General binding rules: small sewage discharge to a surface water
- General binding rules: small sewage discharge to the ground
- Groundwater source protection zones (SPZs)
- Domestic sewage: discharges to surface water and groundwater
- Cemeteries and burials: prevent groundwater pollution
News and communications
- Measures to reduce harm from storm overflows to be made law
- New £10 million fund to drive private sector investment in nature
- The jury's out on River Ouseburn future
- Taskforce sets goal to end pollution from storm overflows
- Stark warning to several water companies as environmental performance fails to improve
Research and statistics
- Oestrogenic effects in wild fish: comparing contemporary and historical impacts
- Mapping of brackish aquifers and deep sourced springs
- Perspectives on protection of deep groundwater
- Impacts on groundwater from shale gas production in northern England
- Northern Ireland environmental statistics report 2020
Policy papers and consultations
- River basin planning: Challenges and Choices
- National FCERM strategy: Strategic Environmental Assessment scoping report
- Bathing waters: removing Allonby South from the list of designated bathing waters
- River basin management plans: use of strategic environmental assessment screening
- Urban waste water treatment: updated sensitive areas maps 2019