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Drinking Water Safeguard Zones (Groundwater)

Publisher
Environment Agency
Updated
7 April 2026
Topic
Not set

Summary

Drinking Water Groundwater Safeguard Zones (SgZs) are established around public water supplies where additional pollution control measures are needed. The Water Framework Directive requires that Drinking Water Protected Areas are identified (WFD Article 7.1) and that they are given the necessary protection (WFD Article 7.3) with the aim of avoiding deterioration in their quality in order to reduce the level of purification treatment required in the production of drinking water. The geometry of Groundwater Safeguard Zones are based on Groundwater Source Protection Zones (SPZs)*, usually the SPZ 2, and use additional assessment to identify areas, which may or may not coincide with the SPZ, where additional measures are required to ensure that abstraction waters meet Article 7.3 of the WFD. SgZs can be large or small depending on the pollution problem and may not cover the whole of a catchment or sub-catchment. *AfA029 Source Protection Zones [Merged] is available. Attribution statement: Contains Environment Agency information © Environment Agency and/or database rights. Derived from BGS digital data under licence from British Geological Survey copyright NERC.

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Additional information

Source Metadata
XML, HTML
Date added
25 July 2025
Harvest GUID
6288b7b0-d465-11e4-b13c-f0def148f590
Extent (Latitude)
55.816° to 49.943°
Extent (Longitude)
-6.236° to 2.072°
Spatial reference system
http://www.opengis.net/def/crs/EPSG/0/27700
Dataset reference date (creation)
2009-06-08
Dataset reference date (revision)
2025-07-10
Frequency of update
biannually
Access constraints
The following information is not available under the Open Government Licence but we may be able to license it to you under the Environment Agency Conditional Licence with the following Special Conditions: 1. This Information may only be used by you either in pursuance of this condition or in pursuance of condition 2 below. This condition applies if your use is:  for the purposes of contract you have to do work for us and if you do not have a contract to do work for us no use is permitted under this condition 1, and  for your internal use only but this does not prevent you from passing it back to us or to a subcontractor who complies with these conditions and  if, subject to any express written provision in the contract, you ensure that all intellectual property rights created in the performance of the contract vest in us, and  you destroy all copies of the Information at the end of the contract subject only to any retentions necessarily required by statute or otherwise by a binding legal obligation or for archive purposes for the sole purpose of addressing a complaint or challenge from a regulator or the National Audit Office in relation to your use of the Information. 2. If you are not using the Information in pursuance of condition 1 you must only use the Information in a way that • we have confirmed in writing to you supports our statutory functions, or • that is authorised by any statute, or • does not require a licence from us. 3 if you make a supply of the Information to a third party it must be only to your contractor or partner for the same purpose as our supply to you and you must make no charge that exceeds marginal costs of supply unless it is a statutory charge. 4. We have restricted use of the Information as a result of legal restrictions placed upon us to protect the rights or confidentialities of others. In this instance it is because of prior rights owned by the British Geological Survey. If you contact us in writing (this includes email) we will, as far as confidentiality rules allow, provide you with details including, if available, how you might seek permission from a third party to extend your use rights
Responsible party
Environment Agency (pointOfContact)
ISO 19139 resource type
dataset
Metadata language
eng

Contact

DSPcustomerforum@environment-agency.gov.uk

enquiries@environment-agency.gov.uk

Freedom of Information (FOI) requests

Licence information

Environment Agency Conditional Licence (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/environment-agency-conditional-licence/environment-agency-conditional-licence), The following information is not available under the Open Government Licence but we may be able to license it to you under the Environment Agency Conditional Licence with the following Special Conditions:\n\n1. This Information may only be used by you either in pursuance of this condition or in pursuance of condition 2 below. This condition applies if your use is: \n\uf0a7 for the purposes of contract you have to do work for us and if you do not have a contract to do work for us no use is permitted under this condition 1, and\n\uf0a7 for your internal use only but this does not prevent you from passing it back to us or to a subcontractor who complies with these conditions and\n\uf0a7 if, subject to any express written provision in the contract, you ensure that all intellectual property rights created in the performance of the contract vest in us, and \n\uf0a7 you destroy all copies of the Information at the end of the contract subject only to any retentions necessarily required by statute or otherwise by a binding legal obligation or for archive purposes for the sole purpose of addressing a complaint or challenge from a regulator or the National Audit Office in relation to your use of the Information.\n\n2. If you are not using the Information in pursuance of condition 1 you must only use the Information in a way that \n\u2022 we have confirmed in writing to you supports our statutory functions, or\n\u2022 that is authorised by any statute, or \n\u2022 does not require a licence from us.\n\n3 if you make a supply of the Information to a third party it must be only to your contractor or partner for the same purpose as our supply to you and you must make no charge that exceeds marginal costs of supply unless it is a statutory charge. \n4. We have restricted use of the Information as a result of legal restrictions placed upon us to protect the rights or confidentialities of others. In this instance it is because of prior rights owned by the British Geological Survey. If you contact us in writing (this includes email) we will, as far as confidentiality rules allow, provide you with details including, if available, how you might seek permission from a third party to extend your use rights