Environment Agency
Water abstraction licence register
The register of licensed water abstraction in England: licence holder, purpose, source type, point of abstraction and authorised volume — the authorised side of the abstraction picture, as distinct from what is actually taken.
Rights
- Licence
- Open Government Licence v3.0
- Commercial reuse
- Not clearly stated
- Redistribution
- Not clearly stated
- Derivative use
- Yes
- Attribution required
- YesContains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
- Terms last checked
- 23 August 2026
Access and coverage
- Publisher
- Environment Agency
- Geographic coverage
- England — licensed abstractions
- Update frequency
- irregular
- Formats
- csv
- Bulk download
- Not available
- Registration required
- No
- Cost to Hydrionis
- Free
- Domains
- abstraction, withdrawal
Notes
Recorded because the gap matters, not because the source is usable. Spec §6 asks for authorised abstraction to be tracked separately from actual abstraction, and Hydrionis currently holds only the actual side, from the French national BNPE. The English licence register is the obvious counterpart — it carries holder, purpose, source type and authorised volume — and it is the licence declaration rather than the data that blocks it. Worth pursuing with the Environment Agency directly.