Current water abstraction licences

Status: 
Escalated to data holder
Publisher: 
Notes: 

Reassigned to the Environment Agency (EA). Mod 20/04/2016

Data request description: 
Please could you publish a list of all current holders of water abstraction licenses in England and Wales. Ground water and surface water. Including the geographic location, the volume of water each license holder is allowed to abstract each year, for what purpose is the abstracted water used, and when does each license expire or come up for renewal.
Suggested use: 
Research
Benefits overview: 
In order to better understand the implications of the water bill and to see who, ultimately, owns this increasingly rare resource.

Comments

National Abstraction Licensing Database (Environment Agency)

Records of water abstraction licences are held in the National Abstraction Licensing Database (NALD). The responsible data holder is the Environment Agency (and Natural Resources Wales).

This dataset is not currently available as open data. (Some of the information is likely to be considered commercially confidential and there may also be national security issues.)

However according to the Environment Agency's internal Approval for Access Register the water abstractions dataset can be licensed for release if there is a request. Following is a link to an extract of the relevant metadata:

Water Abstractions (AfA135)

Here is a copy of the Environment Agency's User Guide:

Water Abstractions National Dataset User Guide

(The user guide is from 2009; it may contain some out-of-date information and the EA may hold a more recent version.)

Defra also publishes a range of water abstraction statistics as open data here:

ENV15 - Water abstraction tables

-- Owen Boswarva, 03/04/2014 

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Current water abstraction licences

Locations and abstraction licence holders for abstractions are incuded in the hydrological information that form part of commercial historical and environmental mapping  services such as Envirocheck.

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