Areas Affecting Bathing Waters: Environment Agency Polygons for Technical Assessments

Environment Agency product AfA143 contains approximately 500 geospatial polygons related to sites identified under the Bathing Water Directive. These polygons are intended to aid the Environment Agency's work on discharge permitting and technical assessments where bathing potential is considered. The dataset includes polygons for Sensitive Areas under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive in England and Wales, plus guide polygons for other sites.

Use Cases

• Technical assessment of discharge permits based on proximity to bathing water sites.
• Mapping areas where bathing potential influences environmental regulation.
• Cross-referencing Sensitive Areas under the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive with bathing water locations.

Strengths

• Approximately 500 polygons provide spatial coverage for relevant sites.
• Explicitly linked to formal EU directives (Bathing Water Directive, UWWTD).
• Includes polygons for Sensitive Areas under the UWWTD in England and Wales.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The description explicitly warns the polygons are not definitions of bathing water extent and are not suitable for identifying bathing areas.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency

Collection Method

Created for the Environment Agency's permitting work, incorporating Sensitive Area polygons from the UWWTD.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-06 07:08:59.802399; freshness should be verified.

Geography

England and Wales