Groundwater – a very precious resource

April 8, 2015

Groundwater provides a third of our drinking water in England and Wales and it also maintains the flow in many of our rivers. In some areas of Southern England, groundwater supplies up to 80% of the drinking water that comes into homes via our taps so it goes without saying that it is crucial that we look after this resource and ensure that our water is completely safe to drink.

The Environment Agency (EA) has defined Source Protection Zones (SPZs) for 2000 groundwater sources such as wells, boreholes and springs that are used for public drinking water supply. These zones show the risk of contamination from any activities that might cause pollution in the area. The closer the activity, the greater the risk.

The EA maps show groundwater inner, outer and total catchment zones plus a fourth zone of special interest, in relation to a groundwater source. The EA uses these zones to set up pollution prevention measures in areas which are at a higher risk and to monitor the activities of potential polluters nearby.

You can view the groundwater zone maps at: http://maps.environment-agency.gov.uk/wiyby/wiybyController?x=531500.0&y=181500.0&topic=groundwater&ep=map&scale=5&location=London,%20City%20of%20London&lang=_e&layerGroups=default&distance=&textonly=off

At Van Walt we also take monitoring groundwater seriously and with a growing population in the UK, which in turn creates more demand on our groundwater, more waste to manage and the likelihood of fracking throughout the country – our groundwater is under constant threat. And because we don’t see groundwater it is often not until a problem arises that it comes to public attention. These problems can include too little groundwater, too much groundwater or groundwater quality changes.

If you want to monitor groundwater quality Van Walt has a range of water quality meters and sondes ranging from a pH datalogger through to a fully telemetrised multi-parameter water quality monitoring system linking the data from deployed loggers directly to your computer, mobile phone or tablet via our vanwaltCONNECT system.

We also supply loggers for monitoring groundwater levels and temperature. Diver Level Loggers, many thousands of which are deployed worldwide, are unique and the ‘industry standard’ for water level monitoring. These small, smart and easy to use groundwater monitoring instruments can be read using a variety of options from manually collecting Diver data onsite to our telemetry option.

Visit our Diver pages or call us on +44 (0)1428 661 660 for more information.