Every summer, people swim in English rivers. Dogs splash in them. Kayakers paddle through them. And for years, the only easy way to find out whether a sewage overflow was discharging nearby was to either be very lucky with your timing, or just not know at all.
WaterWatch was built to fix that — but when it launched, it only covered one part of England: the Thames Water region, which covers London and the South East. The rest of the country was dark.
That changes today. WaterWatch now tracks sewage discharge events at over 5,000 sites across all nine major water companies in England. Whether you’re near the River Wharfe in Yorkshire, the Exe in Devon, or the Severn in the Midlands — you can now check what’s happening in real time.
Why it took a while
Water companies are required by law to publish data about when their storm overflow pipes — the ones that discharge untreated sewage during heavy rain — are active. This is called Event Duration Monitoring, or EDM. Most companies do this through a system called ArcGIS, which is essentially a way of publishing geographic data online.
The good news: all nine companies publish their EDM data publicly. No login, no charge, no special access needed. The less good news: they all do it slightly differently. Different field names, different status codes, different ways of representing time — each one requires its own translation layer to make it readable. Getting that right for eight additional companies, across thousands of sites, took time to get right.
The data shown on WaterWatch is the same data the water companies publish themselves. We don’t add to it, and we don’t interpret it beyond what the raw feed shows. If a site shows “discharging”, that means the company’s own sensor has reported an active discharge event.
What you can check now
| Company | Region | Sites | History |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thames Water | London & South East | ~700 | Full history from 2020 |
| Yorkshire Water | Yorkshire | ~640 | Live from April 2026 |
| Severn Trent | Midlands | ~1,000 | Historical import pending (2021+) |
| United Utilities | North West | ~570 | Historical import pending (2025+) |
| Northumbrian Water | North East | ~360 | Historical import pending (2023+) |
| South West Water | South West | ~580 | Historical import pending (2020+) |
| Southern Water | South East | ~480 | Live from April 2026 |
| Wessex Water | Wessex | ~370 | Historical import pending (2025+) |
| Anglian Water | East of England | ~580 | Monthly summaries only |
Live status is updated every 15 minutes for all 9 companies. You can see every currently active discharge across the whole of England on the national map, or go straight to your water company’s page if you want to focus on your area.
What you can’t check yet — and why
Live status is one thing. The more useful question is often: how often does this pipe discharge? Is it getting worse? Has anything changed since the company said it was investing in the network?
For Thames Water, WaterWatch can answer that — there’s a full record of every episode going back to 2020. For the other eight companies, that history doesn’t exist yet on WaterWatch, even though the data does exist.
Historical records: what we have vs. what’s visible
Several water companies — including South West Water, Severn Trent, Northumbrian and Wessex — have shared their full historical discharge records going back years. We have those files. We’re not showing them yet because loading several million rows of data into the database takes time to do properly, and showing partial or incomplete history is worse than showing nothing. That work is in progress. When it’s done, you’ll be able to see the same detailed episode history for those companies that you can currently see for Thames.
For Yorkshire Water and Southern Water, it’s a different story: they simply haven’t shared historical data with WaterWatch. For those, the record starts from when live monitoring began in April 2026. The history will build over time.
What this actually means for you
If you swim in a river, walk a dog near a stream, or just want to know what’s going into the water near where you live, WaterWatch now has you covered regardless of where in England you are.
Open the map, find your local river, and look for the red dots. Red means something is actively discharging right now. Orange means it discharged in the last 48 hours. Green means it’s been quiet.
You can also sign up for alerts for specific sites — the moment a discharge starts or stops near somewhere that matters to you, you’ll get an email. It’s free.
This is public data, presented clearly. That’s what WaterWatch is for.
Every site. Every company. Live discharge status updated every 15 minutes.
Open the national map →