Live map shows sewage spills in England - check the most recent leaks in your area

Sewage spills into England's lakes, rivers and seas by water companies more than doubled in 2023.

An online tool called 'The Sewage Map', created by Dr Alex Lipp and Jonny Dawe, shows in real-time the river sections which are downstream of sewage discharges from storm overflows.

On a map showing England’s rivers, an emoji is displayed when sewage dischargers are live, a red exclamation mark indicates a spill over the last 48 hours, and a green tick indicates no spill has been reported in the last 48 hours.

The map identified sewage discharge affecting waterways in Shrewsbury which it says began at about 5.48pm on Monday (February 3) and ended just under an hour later at around 6.41pm.

It also showed sewage discharge feeding into Shylte Brook near to Much Wenlock which began at about 10.25am on Monday and was active as of 8pm.

Last May, a team of top engineers and scientists warned of the growing public health risk from human faeces in the country's rivers, and called for more regular testing. 

The presence of faeces can expose people to bacteria such as salmonella and E.coli, which cause diarrhoea and vomiting, or viruses like hepatitis A which can lead to liver infection.

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 a 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. So we used what data we have to highlight which rivers are being impacted.”

To see if sewage is affecting your local area, people can visit 'The Sewage Map'.