Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has developed their own app, external developed an app to provide alerts when bathing water quality could be affected by pollution, including sewage spills.
It says the information comes from various sources including voluntarily data from water companies in England and Wales, from sensors that monitor when a Combined Sewer Overflow operates.
The alert stays live for 48 hours post-discharge.
It says UK water companies keep pollution alerts active for varying periods so “for the safety of water users, SAS follows the precautionary approach to keep the current alerting system in place at 48 hours”.
The app also includes features such as tide information, health reporting and a live map showing active overflow discharges.
Water companies also provide information on when bathing water quality could be affected by sewage spills.
South West Water has WaterFit Live, external, which the company says helps “people make informed decisions before they swim”.
An alert is displayed for 12hours and 30 minutes after a spill concludes.
A separate storm overflow map shows storm overflows in “near real time”, with overflows remaining visible for 24 hours after they end.
The utility company says its storm overflow map “simply reports whether an overflow is operating and does not assess bathing water quality risk, which is assessed separately at beach level using the methodology published on the WaterFit Live website”.
