Nitrate Vulnerable Zones (NVZ) 2017 Final Designations for the UK

Final 2017 designations of Nitrate Vulnerable Zones in the UK following a review and appeals process. The Environment Agency created these zones to identify areas at risk from agricultural nitrate pollution, where waters contain or could exceed 50mg/l nitrate. This dataset has been retired and superseded by the NVZ 2021 designations.

Use Cases

• Map areas at risk from agricultural nitrate pollution based on the NVZ designation criteria.
• Analyze regulatory compliance and land management requirements based on the final zone boundaries.
• Model potential water pollution sources based on the spatial relationship between NVZs and agricultural land.
• Support environmental impact assessments for farming activities based on the designated zone data.

Strengths

• Designations are final and incorporate the results of an appeals process.
• Derived from authoritative sources including the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey, and the British Geological Survey.

Limitations

• Dataset is retired and superseded by a 2021 version; it is not current for new analysis.
• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency

Collection Method

Designated in accordance with the Nitrate Pollution Prevention Regulations 2015 following a 4-yearly review.

Time Range

Designations for implementation in 2017.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-07-06 07:15:58.248531; freshness should be verified.

Geography

United Kingdom