Normal background concentrations of contaminants (OGC WxS INSPIRE)

The BGS has been commissioned by Defra to provide guidance on what are 'normal' levels of contaminant concentrations in English soils in support of the revision of the Part 2A Contaminated Land Statutory Guidance. The domain polygons and other data produced by this work are served as WMS here.

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What's in it

Data offered docs-verified: domain polygons for normal background concentrations of contaminants in English soils · other BGS datasets produced by the normal background work, served as WMS
Coverage docs-verified: England (English soils)
Update frequency docs-verified: monthly (dataset metadata; last updated 2 October 2026)
Formats docs-verified: WMS
Access docs-verified: Public WMS listed on data.gov.uk; no authentication stated. Licence: NERC/BGS access constraints apply (no reproduction or transmission without BGS permission). Site content otherwise under OGL v3.0.

Useful for

Use cases llm-inferred: Part 2A contaminated land assessments: compare site soil results against BGS normal background domains · Phase 1/2 site investigation reporting: check whether reported metal concentrations exceed regional background · GIS mapping of background domains as a layer in site or regional geo-environmental reports
Audience llm-inferred: contaminated land consultants · geo-environmental engineers · environmental consultants · GIS analysts

Limitations

Constraints llm-inferred: WMS is a map-image service; the docs do not state any download, GetFeatureInfo or numeric-value access, so underlying concentration values may not be retrievable · Access constraints: NERC copyright; no reproduction or transmission without BGS permission · NERC/BGS gives no warranty on quality or accuracy and accepts no liability; use is at the customer's own risk · Metadata extent (49.28 to 61.41 N, -9.01 to 3.34 E) is wider than England; confirm the WMS footprint before relying on it for English sites · Dataset reference date is 2012-07-11 but the entry is marked updated 2 October 2026 with monthly update frequency; confirm currency against the revised Part 2A guidance · No resolution or scale is stated in the docs

Licence: ["The copyright of materials derived from the British Geological Survey's work is vested in the Natural Environment Research Council [NERC]. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in an
Authentication: Unknown — review source docs
GitHub stars: Unknown
Last commit: Unknown
Last successful page check: 16/10/2026
Page health: page reachable
Package: Not recorded
Verification: Not independently verified

Provenance & evidence

Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).

Metadata observed 14/10/2026 · research sweep: sweep-2026-10-16 (data.gov.uk)