The Environment Agency, as a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), is required to respond to legitimate request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (2000 c. 36) & the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (2004 No. 3391).
However it is not often recognised that the Environment Agency licenses certain information that is accessible to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. This data specified as available in the Information for Re-use Register (IfRR) & has undergone the Approval for Access (AfA) process where relevant policy and legal checks have been made.
Certain data, is able to be made accessible because of the exemptions detailed in that legislation (e.g. for reasons of national security, personal data etc.), are not available under licence. In addition, there may be some information where the Environment Agency does not have permission from the owners of third-party Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and so are not able to make that information available under licence, unless royalties have been negotiated.
The Information for Re-use Register (IfRR) acts as a catalogue of their licensed information resources. Each item on the IfRR is available for re-use under licence with some data available as EA Open Data and others in price categories; Low, Medium and High.
A copy of the Information for Re-use Register is available at http://bit.ly/XdqVvA