The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has flagged up crucial gaps in the existing evidence base used to support Government decision-making in key areas of water sector policy, including flood and coastal erosion risk management, drinking water quality and water availability.

The areas where more research are needed to support policy development are identified in the latest evidence plans produced by the Government Department, which has set out its near to medium term plans to plug the gaps covering the period 2013 to 2018. Defra has developed the plans setting out current and future evidence needs for each policy area which has a significant evidence-led component.

The Water Availability and Quality Evidence Plan is one of a total of 31 plans produced by Defra - others which specifically impact on the UK water sector include Biodiversity and Ecosystems, Drinking Water Quality and Health, Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management and the Marine Programme.

Defra’s Water Availability and Quality (WAAQ) Programme delivers the Government’s policy priorities in the areas of water supply and function, water quality and water industry reform. Defra said the establishment of a balanced supply-demand regime is crucial to achieving sustainable water management, commenting:

“In practice this entails a regulatory framework for competition that promotes innovation in the water industry and where long term planning takes place alongside short-term efficiency savings.”

Defra describes the overarching objective of WAAQ’s Evidence & Analysis Programme as the delivery of high quality and high impact evidence that supports existing, and shapes future, policy and practice in water availability and quality. However, Defra commented:

“The Programme faces a wide range of evidence challenges, covering natural sciences and socio-economics, across which our knowledge varies considerably.”

Evidence to drive innovation among key priorities

Defra has flagged the need for evidence to inform how to drive innovation in the sector as a high priority. Defra said that innovation, which includes a range of activities on a domestic and global scale, both within the water sector and supply chain, will be fundamental to achieving sustainable and secure water resources for the future.

Defra’s primary high priority evidence needs for water supply and function are:

• Assessing opportunities and barriers to achieving an optimum water supply-demand balance to increase resilience in the water sector;
• Producing the evidence to support the design of an improved abstraction licensing system which considers alternative options for water allocation and charging while protecting environmental flows; and
• Improving Defra’s understanding of the costs, benefits and barriers to the adoption of sustainable urban drainage systems, local rainwater harvesting and storage schemes.

Other evidence requirements identified as key to achieving a sustainable supply- demand balance include:

• Improved understanding of customer behaviours and barriers to the uptake of water efficiency measures
• Assessing the effectiveness of different interventions to encourage water savings and behaviour change
• Investigating new technologies for water re-use
• Review the effectiveness of enhanced capital allowance schemes for water efficient products

Further evidence needed to develop policy on sustainable leakage and water abstraction

On reducing leakage levels, Defra’s plans include investigating how social and environmental costs and benefits are included in the water companies’ sustainable, economic level of leakage and reforming the water abstraction regime to address increasing risks of water scarcity and environmental damage due to climate change and increasing water demand

On water abstraction, Defra said a key evidence priority in the near term for WAAQ is to develop the evidence base in support of the upcoming reform of the water abstraction regime, originally set up in the 1960s. The programme has now started a three year plan of research which aims to quantify the level and distribution of impacts on abstractors in England and Wales, (in the period 2025 to 2050 and beyond) of reform options that will meet environmental flow targets to protect water ecosystems.

Defra also wants to develop a better understanding of how policy options under water scarcity scenarios will affect water companies’ strategies for meeting their public water supply requirements and wider business interests.

In order to ensure a fair distribution of the impacts of the review of the abstraction on non-water company abstractors, Defra will also seek to identify potential response strategies available to different abstractor sectors (excluding water companies) to mitigate the risks of changing water availability and reliability

Evidence needs highlight useful business opportunities

The plans provides some useful pointers on current Government thinking and possible policy approaches under consideration – both of which are likely to have important business implications for the water companies and their supply chain, together with other water-intensive business sectors and industrial users.

For example, WAAQ is planning to conduct an early evaluation of the impact of implementation of section 42 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which will introduce mandatory adoption and new build standards for new sewers and lateral drains.

Increasing interconnections and the trading of bulk supplies of treated water have also been identified as important options to meet future water availability requirements in a cost effective manner. Defra is flagging up the need for further research to explore options and opportunities for water companies to work together on local or regional grid basis to improve the supply demand balance and the resilience of supply security through greater interconnectivity.

Similarly, to support the establishment of an effective management strategy for surface water drainage and surface water, WAAQ ‘s near-term research priorities for surface water drainage, which is jointly planned with the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Programme, include the development of:

• a strategic approach to drainage planning and standards, including drainage connectivity
• enhanced resilience against surface water flooding. The Government intends to implement measures to increase the uptake of sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) in new developments.
• Understanding of barriers to the uptake of rainwater harvesting and storage

Defra said research prioirities for implementation of provisions within the Flood and Water Management Act on SuDS would include work to continue improving the understanding of the costs, benefits and barriers for the adoption of SuDS, monitoring and evaluation of the implemenatation of SuDS and an appraisal of the benefits of existing SuDS in alleviating the impacts of floods.

More work needed on WFD drivers for diffuse pollution sources

High priority evidence needs for the Water Quality programme include identifying the reasons for failure of WFD objectives and select cost-effectiveness and further development of the evidence base on effective mechanisms to tackle the impact of diffuse pollution sources on water bodies.

Whilst agriculture is a significant contributor to water pollution, contamination from the built environment is also a considerable factor. Recent research shows that non-agricultural diffuse pollution (NADP) accounts for approximately 1200 water bodies failing to meet WFD standards. WAAQ has planned research to characterise and estimate the scale of impact of NADP sources, as well as to identify cost-effective remediation measures to support the process. The list of priority substances under WFD is currently being reviewed and it is expected to strengthen environmental quality standards for existing hazardous substances and include new additions.

Further evidence needed to underpin water industry reform

On water industry reform, identification of the major factors that determine the resilience of the water sector to future pressures is a top priority, alongside other evidence priorities including:

• the development of guidelines for the next water resources management planning cycle;
• the development of policy on new water charges;
• and assessing the opportunities for, and barriers to, enhancing competition in the water industry and the implications on affordability and fairness.

In the longer term, Defra said the high evidence priorities for WAAQ will be shaped by the main challenges facing water resources management and the protection of water ecosystems ;population growth; urbanisation; behavioural change in reference to water usage; and climate change.

Future water resources management would also need to be supported by evidence that anticipates future conditions and differences in what Defra describes as “the social weave of England and Wales” which may affect water uses and demand and access to affordable water supply for all consumers. Additional high priority research areas for WAAQ in the longer term include the evaluation of water-related environmental issues such as the effects of new pharmaceuticals and nano-products

Work would also be needed to identify the best means for fully incorporating ecosystem service valuation, flood and drought management, climate change, and behavioural change into specific Integrated River Basin Management and Integrated Catchment Management programmes.

To support all this work, WAAQ will horizon-scan to anticipate new threats to the water environment and water supplies, and to identify new ways to deal with existing and new challenges, from technology to social solutions. WAAQ is planning to make use of an ‘Evidence Assessment’ approach which synthesises knowledge in a particular subject area or in response to a specific question.

Defra said that synthesising all that is known in a particular area will help policy and evidence teams at the Water Directorate to assess the state of knowledge in the area and identify evidence gaps.

Defra has also flagged up as a top evidence priority for the more efficient use of water the achievement of a good understanding of public perception on sustainable water measures, including water conservation, water efficiency and attitudes to water pollution.

Defra said the the latest plans, which set out evidence needs for a 5 year timeframe from 2013/14-2017/18, will be updated roughly annually to reflect any major changes in evidence needs as a result of changing policy needs.

The plans setting out current and future evidence needs have been developed for each policy area which has a significant evidence-led component. 

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