Southern Water Unveils New App for Monitoring Sewage Overflows

Southern Water has introduced a new application, which the company states will transform how its customers perceive overflow incidents throughout the service area. This new Rivers and Seas Watch app replaces the water utility’s prior online platform, Beachbuoy. The application will display information for every combined sewer outfall, also referred to as storm overflows, across its 700 miles (1,130 km) of coastline, rivers, and streams. Southern Water delivers water services to approximately 2.7 million customers in East and West Sussex, Kent, Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. The company indicated that this new service represents a “far cry” from the offering available when its initial application was introduced in 2018. Tom Gallagher, the open water improvement lead, noted “major improvements to the look and feel of the site”. He further explained, “Each outfall is colour coded – as before, green indicates no releases in the last 72 hours, amber shows there has been a release up to 72 hours ago, and a red icon highlights a release within the last 24 hours that our modelling shows could impact water quality.” The preceding application, which Southern Water identified as the first alerting service from a water company, was manually compiled and provided coverage solely for Langstone and Chichester Harbours, along with Ventor, Hillhead, Joss Bay, and Bexhill bathing waters. The company also stated that the new tool utilizes advanced modeling of tides, currents, and winds to offer enhanced information regarding the potential effects of storm releases on local water quality. Luke Hyttner, the project lead, commented that Rivers and Seas Watch was developed through a “customer-first approach, engaging extensively with our community to understand their needs, wants and feedback”. He further remarked, “This has been invaluable in allowing us to really focus our efforts on improving how we communicate this important information to the public in a transparent, accurate and timely way.”