Groundwater protection in England
Groundwater protection guides covering requirements, permissions, risk assessments and controls.
If you’re carrying out an activity which could affect the quality or quantity of groundwater you will need to understand:
- what groundwater is
- how your activity might affect it
- if your activity is classed as a ‘groundwater activity’
Use this guidance to work out:
- what you need to do for your groundwater activity
- what environmental permissions you need and how to get them
- how to get help
These guides are relevant for:
- developers
- planners
- environmental permit applicants and operators
This guidance is for England. See information about groundwater protection in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Overarching principles for groundwater protection
These guides are overarching in that they give principles that inform all of the other guides.
Managing surface water run-off and drainage to ground
Legacy contamination
How to manage risk to groundwater from historic contamination.
Overarching permitting guidance
How to protect groundwater to meet the requirements of the Environmental Permitting Regulations.
Sewage effluent discharges: environmental permits
Guidance on discharges of liquid effluent to ground.
Geothermal energy: environmental permits
Guidance on regulating and permitting groundwater activities in the geothermal energy sector.
Open and closed loop heating and cooling systems: environmental permits
Guidance on when you need a permit for open or closed loop heating and cooling systems.
Cemeteries and burials: environmental permits
Waste: environmental permits
This guidance covers waste operations that may include a groundwater activity.
Radioactive waste: environmental permits
Guidance on disposals of radioactive waste that are also groundwater activities.
Landspreading: environmental permits
This covers codes of practice for landspreading environmental permits.
Monitoring emissions from permitted sites
Groundwater protection for business and domestic properties
How to protect groundwater in your day-to-day business operations and at home.
Advice and feedback
If you need advice before you apply for an environmental permit or licence, you can use the Environment Agency’s pre-application advice services.
You can give anonymous feedback about whether this page was useful through the options at the bottom of this page.
Updates to this page
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Added links to more guidance related to groundwater protection. Added categories and reorganised the page.
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Added a link to 'Discharge of heat to ground from a single closed loop ground source heating and cooling system supplying residential premises: RPS 307'.
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Added links to 'Low environmental risk cemeteries: exemption conditions', 'Closed loop ground source heating and cooling systems: when you need a permit' and 'Closed loop ground source heating and cooling systems: exemption conditions'.
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First published.