First comprehensive map reveals true horror of England's sewage crisis

The first ever comprehensive waterways map reveals the 'horrifying' reality of England's sewage crisis. Sewage spills into England's lakes, rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023. 'The Sewage Map', created by Dr Alex Lipp and Jonny Dawe, shows which river sections are downstream of sewage discharges from storm overflows - in real-time. The map shows rivers across England, indicating a 'poo' emoji (which Jonny designed) when sewage dischargers are live, a red exclamation mark indicates a spill over the last 48 hours and a green tick indicates no spill reported in the last 48 hours. As Scotland and Wales are regulated differently, the team currently do not release their data, but hope to in the future. The map is modelled continuously rather than a river-by-river basis - and 'non' polluted rivers are not shown, to keep the map as simple as possible. Dr Alex, an Earth and environmental scientist and a lecturer at the Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, said: "Pollution of waterways globally is major issue impacting on human health as well as freshwater and marine ecosystems. "We wanted to create something that shows the connectivity of sewage pollution, and the thing we are all interested in is rivers. "Rivers are something people have a very strong relationship to, and sewage going into rivers invokes a strong emotional impact that is not being understood. "It is so important as a society to have a strong emotional relationship with our environment. "So we used what data we have to highlight which rivers are being impacted."

The first ever comprehensive waterways map reveals the 'horrifying' reality of England's sewage crisis. Sewage spills into England's lakes, rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023. 'The Sewage Map', created by Dr Alex Lipp and Jonny Dawe, shows which river sections are downstream of sewage discharges from storm overflows - in real-time.

The map shows rivers across England, indicating a 'poo' emoji (which Jonny designed) when sewage dischargers are live, a red exclamation mark indicates a spill over the last 48 hours and a green tick indicates no spill reported in the last 48 hours. As Scotland and Wales are regulated differently, the team currently do not release their data, but hope to in the future. The map is modelled continuously rather than a river-by-river basis - and 'non' polluted rivers are not shown, to keep the map as simple as possible.

Dr Alex, an Earth and environmental scientist and a lecturer at the Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, said: "Pollution of waterways globally is major issue impacting on human health as well as freshwater and marine ecosystems. "We wanted to create something that shows the connectivity of sewage pollution, and the thing we are all interested in is rivers. "Rivers are something people have a very strong relationship to, and sewage going into rivers invokes a strong emotional impact that is not being understood.

"It is so important as a society to have a strong emotional relationship with our environment. "So we used what data we have to highlight which rivers are being impacted.".