dataset · England
Source Protection Zones [Merged]
Source Protection Zones [Merged] have been created as public facing outlines where common boundaries and overlaps (based on zone number) have been removed. Source Protection Zones (SPZs) are defined around large and public potable groundwater abstraction sites. The purpose of SPZs is to provide additional protection to safeguard drinking water quality through constraining the proximity of an activity that may impact upon a drinking water abstraction. This is part of an initial screening process
Visit source ↗Source details
Licence: ["There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the licence identified.", "There are no public access constraints to this data. Use of this data is subject to the
Evidence quality: 57
Listed in data.gov.uk public catalogue API on 2026-10-16; relevance/value screened (haiku).
Metadata checked: 2026-10-14T13:20:00.000Z
What's in it
- Data offered docs-verified
- Source Protection Zone polygons for large public potable groundwater abstractions · Zone 1 (inner, 50-day travel time), Zone 2 (outer, 400-day travel time), Zone 3 (total catchment) · Zones 1c, 2c, 3c (extended where protective geology such as clay is present) · Zone 4 (Zone of Special Interest), defined only for some sources
- Coverage docs-verified
- Extent lat 49.943 to 55.816, lon -6.236 to 2.072 (bounding box); catalogue region England
- Update frequency docs-verified
- irregular
- Formats docs-verified
- OGC API - Features · WFS · WMS · SHP (zip) · GeoPackage (zip) · GeoJSON (zip) · File Geodatabase (zip) · ArcGIS layer file (.lyr)
- Access docs-verified
- Free/open. Open Government Licence v3.0. No public access constraints; use subject to the licence identified. No authentication stated (ENTRY auth null).
Useful for
- Use cases llm-inferred
- Groundwater screening of proposed drilling or contaminative activities against public water supply SPZ1/SPZ2 proximity · Initial constraints mapping for site investigation and contaminated land risk screening near abstractions · SPZ overlay layer in GIS for drainage and infrastructure route constraints in groundwater-sensitive areas
- Audience llm-inferred
- Hydrogeologists · Geotechnical engineers · Environmental consultants · Contaminated land specialists · GIS analysts · Planners
Limitations
- Constraints llm-inferred
- Intended as an initial screening layer, not a substitute for site-specific groundwater assessment · Update frequency is irregular, so currency must be checked against the 18 Sep 2026 revision date · Zone 4 is defined only for some groundwater sources · Merged public-facing outlines remove overlaps by zone number, so per-source attribution is not preserved
Evidence
- https://environment.data.gov.uk/api/file/download?fileDataSetId=cf0f4097-b1e3-431a-86c4-1d85b5ad44e0&fileName=Source_protection_zones.lyr
- https://www.data.gov.uk/dataset/09889a48-0439-4bbe-8f2a-87bba26fbbf5/source-protection-zones-merged1
Check upstream coverage, uncertainty and licence before use. Station observations are not forecasts or design levels.