Back to Reservoirs

  • Report a reservoir incident

Report a reservoir incident

If there is a reservoir incident with immediate threat to life, health or property, please contact the emergency services on 999.

If there’s an incident that could result in damage or injury, contact our Customer Hub on 0800 80 70 60. 

If you are a reservoir manager, and your reservoir is high or medium risk, you should also contact your supervising engineer. If that’s not possible, you should contact your inspecting engineer.

Examples of reservoir incidents

You may need to report:

  • water going over the top of the dam (overtopping)

  • a leak

  • slope instability

  • cracks in the dam

  • instrumentation readings that show abnormal movement in the dam

  • material failure (for example landslip down an embankment of a dam)

  • pollution.

Reporting incidents can help the appropriate bodies to identify any potential trends or similarities in other reported incidents, which could support research and investigations into recurring issues.

After the incident has been resolved

Once you have resolved the incident at your reservoir: 

  1. complete the incident reporting form  

  2. email it to our Reservoir Team: reservoirs@sepa.org.uk. 

You may be held responsible for any damage or injury caused due to a sudden uncontrolled release of water.