Turning Pollution Data into Real-World Decisions

3 Sided Cube helped scale and future-proof the Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS) app by Surfers Against Sewage (SAS), which is now shortlisted for a UK Digital Excellence Award! SSRS supports real decisions about entering the water, often made quickly, in poor conditions, and with others depending on that call.

When 3 Sided Cube joined the project, the Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS) was already a widely used and trusted service. For more than 30 years, Surfers Against Sewage had built a reputation for championing water safety and environmental transparency across the UK.

We didn’t join the project to reinvent the wheel. Throughout the build, one principle guided every decision: put people before performance, clarity before complexity, and trust before trends.

About 3 Sided Cube

3 Sided Cube is an AI-first custom software development agency and our mission is to ‘change millions of lives for the better’! We do this by building ‘tech for good’, which means we work on projects that have a positive impact.

Software That Matters: The kind that saves lives, shakes up systems, and drives change.
Built With Care: Always built in-house, no outsourcing, off-shoring, or mystery dev teams.
By a Driven Team: We’re united by one thing: helping brilliant organisations do brilliant things with tech.

You can find us on LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, and through our website.

And now onto what you’ve been waiting for… the details of our Digital Excellence Award nominated project with Surfers Against Sewage!

An app people rely on in the real world

The Safer Seas and Rivers Service (SSRS) is a mobile app created by Surfers Against Sewage that sends real-time pollution alerts, helping people decide when it’s safe to swim, surf, or paddle.

But SSRS is more than just a safety notification tool. It also plays a key role in improving transparency around water quality, empowering communities to take action when standards fall short while contributing to research into the health impacts of polluted water.

Used across 650+ UK locations and trusted by over 208,000 users, real people making real decisions are behind those numbers.

Most users are members of the public. Surfers checking conditions before paddling out, swimmers planning early morning dips, families visiting the coast, and local communities monitoring their waters. Many access the app in challenging environments: on windy beaches, with limited signal, and little time to navigate complex interfaces. In those moments, the experience must be fast, calm, and reliable.

At the same time, another group of users engages with the service differently. They want deeper transparency into pollution infrastructure and environmental accountability, not just a simple safety indicator.

Designing the service meant supporting both of these user groups’ needs without compromise.

Making complex environmental data usable

From the outset, there were four key objectives for the project:

Increase meaningful engagement with pollution data through the dedicated Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) location map
Improve visibility into how users interact with alerts, notifications, and onboarding
Future-proof the service through clear roadmapping and targeted technical improvements
Establish a robust analytics foundation to support long-term decision making

The challenge was finding the balance between speed and depth. People who are about to enter the water need instant answers, while others want the ability to explore the wider pollution landscape.

Putting users first

The solution was to separate these experiences by intent!

Live bathing water status remains quick and scannable for users making immediate decisions. Meanwhile, deeper environmental context is available for those who want to explore the data behind the alerts.

But we had a few more tricks up our sleeve too…

Understanding how the service is used

Another key improvement happened behind the scenes.

Before this work began, visibility into how people interacted with the service was limited. Implementing PostHog analytics, with custom events and reporting, created a clearer picture of real user journeys.

For Surfers Against Sewage, this now provides insight into feature usage, onboarding flows, and drop-off points across the service.

The results?

Using PostHog has allowed us to establish baseline consent metrics. These now show 60% analytics tracking acceptance and 36% notification acceptance. Now the foundations have been set for evidence-led iteration and optimisation in the future!

Launching the CSO map

One of the most technically demanding aspects of the project was introducing the new CSO location map.

Previously, the service handled data for around 600–700 locations. The new map expanded this to more than 17,000 assets, all accessible through a mobile interface. Maintaining performance was critical!

To achieve this, the team implemented progressive data loading based on map location, ensuring that information appears quickly without overwhelming the device. Close collaboration with Surfers Against Sewage’s developers also helped optimise API calls to support the expanded dataset.

The results?
Engagement with pollution data increased following the CSO map launch. Average CSO page views rose from 2.2 to 4.78 per user, showing deeper exploration when data is presented clearly.

Why the UK Digital Excellence Awards?

Our work with Surfers Against Sewage on the SSRS app shows what responsible data use looks like when people’s safety is involved. It showcases responsible digital impact, and why this work deserves recognition.

This project reflects how the crew at 3 Sided Cube approaches public-interest products. We strengthen what already exists, respect the trust organisations like Surfers Against Sewage have earned, and raise the bar quietly but meaningfully.

“Being shortlisted for the UK Digital Excellence Awards has been a massive fist bump moment for our team! This project represents months of collaboration, creativity and hard work, so to see it recognised at this level is hugely rewarding. We’re absolutely buzzing and proud of what the team has achieved together.”
Duncan Cook, Founder and CEO, 3 Sided Cube

We entered the UK Digital Excellence Awards as they shine a spotlight on the much needed change-makers in the digital world. We are honoured and so excited for the Safer Seas and Rivers Service to be shortlisted!