The Environment Agency has published the national framework for water resources which sets out the strategic direction for long term regional water resources planning in England.

Meeting our future water needs: a national framework for water resources explores England’s long term water needs, setting out the scale of action needed to ensure resilient supplies and an improved water environment.

The framework is the result of collaboration across the water sector bringing together representatives from the water industry through Water UK and regional groups, agriculture, power generation, industry, drainage authorities, navigations, environmental NGOs, regulators and government.

The EA said the national framework marks a step change in water resources planning and is built on a shared vision to:

• leave the environment in a better state than we found it
• improve the nation’s resilience to drought and minimise interruptions to all water users

Introducing the framework, Emma Howard Boyd Chair of the Environment Agency said:

“This report delivers the step-change in strategic and regional collaboration required to ensure the needs of all water users are brought together to better manage and share resources.”

“It’s an opportunity to rethink water and help everyone make decisions on water supplies that can deliver the resilience and environmental enhancement we all want to see.”

Over the next twelve months five regional water resources groups will be working to assess their needs in more detail. The groups, which are made up of the 17 English water companies and other water users, will also produce a set of co-ordinated, cross-sector plans. The plans will:

• address the scale of challenges we face by identifying the options needed in their region to manage demand and increase supply
• realise opportunities from water resources planning by working collaboratively

The regional plans will also inform the water companies’ own Water Resources Management Plans.

Defra’s own work on understanding future water demand outside of the water industry has fed into the water resources national framework.

This work looked in detail at the factors changing water demand in sectors outside the water industry. The report explains the approach taken to estimating these needs and the remaining uncertainties.

In addition to identifying the main pressures on public water supplies in each region, the National Framework explores how much of the need could be met by reducing demand for water and how much additional water is likely to be needed from new infrastructure, such as reservoirs, desalination plants and water transfers.

According to the framework paper, if no action is taken between 2025 and 2050 around 3,435 million extra litres of water per day will be needed for public water supply to address future pressures. This includes:

• 1,150 million litres per day (Ml/d) to make water supplies more resilient to drought
• 1,040 million litres per day to supply the growing population
• 720 million litres per day to replace unsustainable abstractions and improve the environment
• 400 million litres per day* to address the impact of climate change on water availability

Every day 14,000 million litres of water is provided by water companies for public water supply, with a further 1,000 million litres of water used by other sectors such as industry, power generation and farming. Around 50% of the national need is in the South East of England.

The paper also provides estimates of how much water in total other users in each region will need at 2050 and which sectors will use the most.

Click here to download Meeting our future water needs: a national framework for water resources in full

Click here to download the summary document for Meeting our future water needs: a national framework for water resources