Beachbuoy
Beachbuoy is our interactive, near real-time web app designed to help you stay informed about any storm overflow releases at nearby bathing waters.
Beachbuoy displays near real-time storm release activity information relating to our coastal bathing waters. You can sign up for email notifications for your local bathing water, by clicking on the bathing water location pin and entering your details. For further information on how to use the map and how Beachbuoy works, please visit our Beachbuoy information page.
Last updated at . Find out about how this map works and more.
Please note, we can’t make any safety or water quality recommendations as Beachbuoy is simply a reporting tool. The public are therefore advised to use their own discretion when entering the water.
Current and historical releases
To see all current and historical release activity, please click the button below.
View current and historical release table
Storm overflows
We’re committed to reducing storm overflows and have a dedicated Clean Rivers and Seas Task Force working hard to help us achieve this. The team are delivering Pathfinder projects across our region to learn how we can install innovative and sustainable solutions to prevent water getting into the network and causing storm overflows.
Want to know more about storm overflows and what we’re doing to reduce them? Please visit our storm overflow pages.
How Beachbuoy works
Each location pin represents one of our region’s designated coastal bathing waters or recreational harbours. When you click on the pin, you will see a pop-up which shows further information about the location and whether there’s been a storm overflow release in the last 72 hours.
Clicking on the pin also highlights the outfalls which relate to that bathing water. The outfall will change colour depending on whether there has been a release from that site in the last 72 hours.
We provide all our current and historical release data in our Beachbuoy release table. You can filter the data in this table by specific bathing waters or outfalls.
Please note, Beachbuoy only reports when a storm water overflow release has taken place. We can’t make any safety or water quality recommendations, so we advise you to use your own discretion when entering the water.
Our Beachbuoy Working Group is made up of local authorities, campaign groups, bathing water users and interested stakeholders. These groups advise us on any improvements we need to make to Beachbuoy. We present these changes to the group for feedback before we make them. We’ve also surveyed Beachbuoy users to understand what they would like to see and how they wish to use it.
We want to ensure that Beachbuoy provides transparent data and information in a clear and meaningful way. We’ll continue enhancing this tool and we aim to include all inland storm overflows on our website by the end of March 2024.
Beachbuoy determines the impact of a storm release on bathing water based on the location of the outfall, the duration of the release and tidal conditions at the time. For instance, if the outfall is 5km out to sea, the release was short and the tidal conditions meant there could be no impact on the bathing water, we leave the bathing water pin blue (the outfall icon will, however, go red).
You can still see this information in the bathing water pop-up. Details about the release will also be shown in the Beachbuoy release table.
It’s worth noting that releases shown on Beachbuoy can occur several days after rainfall. This is due to the time it takes for the water to pass through our network and arrive at the final treatment works.
Our tidal modelling document provides further information.
Our system automatically flags stormwater releases on Beachbuoy when our alarms and sensors are triggered. This happens before our team is able to review if it is a genuine event or not. This is to ensure we take a caution-first approach to make the public aware of a potential release at the earliest opportunity. We will then review and conform all releases either as:
Genuine – after review, we can confirm there is/was a release.
Genuine non-impacting – after review, we can confirm there is/was a release, but our tidal modelling determined that it hasn't affected the bathing water.
Non-genuine – We’ve reviewed the event and can confirm this was a false alarm, no release happened at this time. False alarms can happen for several reasons including disruption by wildlife, a sensor fault, manual error or power supply issues.
The way in which we count storm releases is defined by the Environment Agency’s guidance. For bathing waters, we are instructed to use the 12/24 counting method.
The method is as follows:
- Start counting when the first release occurs
- Any discharge (or discharges) in the first 12-hour block are counted as one spill.
- Any releases(s) in the next, and subsequent 24-hour blocks, are each counted as one additional spill per block.
- Continue counting until there’s a 24-hour block with no releases.
- After 24 hours without a release, you begin again with the 12-hour and 24-hour block spill counting sequence.
To see our annual storm release data, please visit our Flow and Spill reporting pages.
Beachbuoy Independent Review
We asked a group of independent experts to conduct an assessment of Beachbuoy’s ability to provide consistent, reliable and credible near real-time warnings of potential water quality impacts from storm overflow releases, and to provide a series of recommendations to improve the accuracy and user trustworthiness and confidence of the system.
We’re committed to acting on the recommendations and will incorporate them as both short and long-term goals for Beachbuoy – details on timeframes are outlined in report.
Before publication, time was given for the report to be reviewed by our stakeholder community – providing them with an opportunity to feedback and ask questions to the independent experts via individual sessions, email exchanges and our working group meeting. Minutes from the meeting can be found here: Beachbuoy WG January 31 2024 Minutes
We’re committed to acting on many of the recommendations as part of our new and improved Beachbuoy platform, which we’re looking forward to launching in spring 2024, complete with all inland outfalls and improved usability in features.
Frequently asked questions
Beachbuoy is our interactive, near real-time web app designed to help you stay informed about any storm overflow releases at nearby bathing waters. We know the importance of transparency when it comes to storm overflows and the environment, so we’re upgrading Beachbuoy and releasing a new version in 2024. This new version will not only be easier to use, but will include all inland storm overflows, and have a host of other features created together with our customers and stakeholders.
During heavy rain, local sewer networks can struggle to cope with the amount of water entering pipes and storage tanks. When they fill up, we use pressure relief valves built into the network – known as storm overflows – to stop homes and businesses from flooding.
These overflows release excess water through outfalls into rivers and the sea. Storm overflows are part of the design of the sewers and are regulated by the Environment Agency. They're used in areas where the sewers were built to carry both wastewater from homes and businesses, and rainwater from roofs, gardens and roads.
Beachbuoy has three features, a map, a historic release table, and this information page.
Each of our region’s designated bathing waters or recreational harbours is represented by a location pin on the map. Simply locate the area you’re interested in on the map and click on the bathing water pin. Beachbuoy will show all the individual outfalls in that bathing water area and information about any recent releases can be found in the pop-up window.
Our Beachbuoy release table allows historic releases to be filtered by bathing site, outfall and type. You can also see our annual storm release data.
The pin icons show the location of bathing water sites, and the round icons pinpoint individual storm overflows. 
Sometimes there may be more than one release from a Storm Overflow within a few hours or days. Releases are grouped together using the 12/24 method. You can read more about this method, as defined by the Environment Agency’s guidance.
This method works like this:
1. When the first release happens, we start counting.
2. Any releases in the first 12 hours count as one.
3. Each release in the next 24 hours counts as one more.
4. Keep counting until there's a whole day (24 hours) with no releases.
5. If there's another release after a day without any, start counting again, starting with one for the first 12 hours, and so on.
We use sensors in our storm overflows called Event Duration Monitors or EDMs for short. Data from these sensors is processed through applications to understand if there was a genuine storm overflow release or a false alarm, as well as what time the release occurred and for how long.
Where necessary, manual checks are carried out by our teams of analysts to make sure that the data is as accurate as possible. If we’re looking into a release and its validity, the icon will turn white until we’ve finished investigating, at which point the colour will change to show if there has been a release or not. The data shown on Beachbuoy is the same data that we share with our official regulators - we believe in open access to data to ensure transparency and accountability for improvements.
The system automatically flags storm releases on Beachbuoy when our alarms and sensors are triggered, before the team can review if it is a genuine event or not. This means we can take a cautious first approach to make the public aware of a potential release at the earliest opportunity. All releases are reviewed and either confirmed as:
Genuine – after review, we can confirm there is/was a release.
Genuine non-impacting – after review, we can confirm there is/was a release, but our tidal modelling determined that it isn’t/didn’t impact the bathing water.
Non-genuine – we’ve reviewed the event and can confirm this was a false alarm, no release happened at this time. False alarms can happen for several reasons including disruption by wildlife, fault to the senor, manual error or power supply issues.
Beachbuoy uses something called ‘tidal modelling’ to determine the impact a storm release has on a bathing water. It uses the location of the outfall, the duration of the release and tidal conditions at the time to calculate the changes of impact.
For instance, if the outfall is 5km out to sea, the release was short and the tidal conditions meant there could be no impact on a bathing water, we leave the bathing water pin blue (the outfall icon will however go red). This information is made clear in the bathing water pop-up and details about the release continues to be shown in the Beachbuoy release table.
Yes, simply click on the pin of the bathing water location you’re interested in, click ‘sign up for updates’ and enter your details. We will notify you via email if there has been a storm overflow release at the site.
Storm overflows can have an impact on water quality, however there are many other contributing factors including agricultural run-off, seabird and animal matter and marine activity.
Because of these other factors, Southern Water can’t advise about water quality and whether it’s safe to swim. We can only make predictions about water quality impact caused by storm overflow releases.
We want to make sure that Beachbuoy provides transparent data, giving the information the public wants in a clear and meaningful way, so we actively listen and seek feedback from our Beachbuoy Working Group. This group is made up of local authorities, campaign groups, bathing water users and interested stakeholders, who advise us on improvements we need to make to Beachbuoy. Changes to the site are presented to the group for feedback, before changes are made.
We also survey Beachbuoy users and hold independent reviews to understand what users would like to see and how they wish to use Beachbuoy. This has been an important part of the process to develop the new and improved Beachbuoy due to be launched in Spring 2024.