Continuous Water Quality Monitoring

Section 82 of the Environment Act 2021 requires sewerage undertakers, operating wholly or mainly in England, to continuously monitor the quality of the receiving water upstream and downstream of storm overflows and discharges from wastewater treatment works, enabling impact assessment of discharges from these assets on the receiving watercourse. Actions required to meet the requirements of the Section 82 CWQM are contained within statutory drivers under the Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP). These duties are phased across AMP8 & AMP9, (2025-2035).

The objectives of the CWQM programme are to:

• Quantify local water quality impacts from Water and Sewage Company (WaSC) assets.
• Improve stakeholder & public understanding of impacts from the WaSC assets on water quality.
• Inform improvement programmes to meet Storm Overflow Discharge Reduction Plan (SODRP) targets.
• Inform regulatory action.

The draft technical specification requires that monitoring must:

• Be linked to existing regulatory standards;
• Provide data which can be attributed to the target assets;
• Provide understandable data to the public;
• Provide understanding of how performance and water quality impacts of water company assets change over time; and
• Show water quality impacts of water company assets in near real time

By 2035, SWS will be required to demonstrate that at least 75% of storm overflows discharging into or near ‘high priority sites’ cause no local adverse ecological impact. These sites are programmed for monitor installation during AMP8 (2025-2030) .

DEFRA has published the Interim Technical Standard, setting minimum specifications & performance criteria, to cover the transitionary period prior to development & implementation of a bespoke CWQM MCERTS standard. The interim technical guidance recommends that WaSCs & contracted service providers undertake to develop, and or use, existing standards to establish Quality Management Systems (QMS) covering the following:

• Equipment standards
• Installation standards
• Monitor siting
• Maintenance & calibration
• Data capture, storage, sharing, & validation

Southern Water Services Ltd. is seeking information from all interested suppliers, manufacturers, and solution providers regarding solutions for CWQM, in line with regulatory requirements under Section 82 of the Environment Act 2021 and DEFRA’s CWQM Programme. This RFI aims to gather insights into available technologies, capabilities, and approaches that align with or exceed the interim technical standards outlined below. Responses will inform future procurement and standard development.

We welcome responses from organisations offering complete systems, modular components, relevant services or innovative approaches to monitoring, data management, and assurance. The objective is to understand market capabilities, indicative costs, and technical feasibility for deploying monitoring systems across riverine environments. To enable us to fully understand the market, interested parties should complete and return the “Continuous Water Quality Monitoring (Section 82) 2025 Request for Information”. This first RFI will inform further procurement activities which will include additional engagement requests, concluding with an invitation to tender (ITT).

Suppliers are invited to submit information on products and/or services related to CWQM, with regard to:

• Site planning & investigation, including audit of final monitor locations,
• Supply of approx. 300 monitors & data transmission equipment,
• Installation of approx. 300 monitoring solutions, across Southern Water’s Operational Region (Kent, East and West Sussex, Hampshire and Isle of Wight).
• Operation of the monitoring equipment, including calibration and maintenance,
• Data collection, visualisation & analysis,

As this programme of work is a regulatory requirement within the WINEP, information should be provided to support capability and capacity for offered products and/or services to ensure adherence to the WINEP regulatory completion date of 31st March 2030.

Solutions should include:

• Instrumentation: Multi-parameter sondes, process instrumentation, chemistry analysers
• Power Supply: Available options, focussing on self-contained units (e.g. solar powered)
• Telemetry: Real-time data transmission every 20 minutes
• Data Logging: Every 15 minutes
• Options for Portal Access: Options for integrating with SWS digital systems, as well as Public-facing interfaces with reporting and API export.