The Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources shows how a sustainable water environment can thrive while supporting a growing economy.
If no continued and enhanced action is taken, around 5 billion extra litres of water per day may be needed by 2055 for public water supplies to address future pressures. A further 1 billion litres of water may be needed by 2055 for water use other than public water supply. This includes water for energy security and for food production. Further details on how this is assessed and calculated can be found: The National Framework for Water Resources - Join Our Community | Engage Environment Agency
The environmental destination for water resources identifies where, and by how much, water abstraction needs to change to achieve and maintain a healthy water environment, both now and in the future.
Where changes are needed to ensure that abstraction is environmentally sustainable, the EA will act with confidence to put timely solutions in place, and will seek to do this in conjunction with abstractors and stakeholders. While they will be legally obliged to secure sustainable abstraction, there will often be choices around how this is achieved.
Sometimes, the solution may involve a change to the abstraction licence volumes or conditions to ensure that the environment is protected, and it is possible that the Environment Agency may need to use its powers to formally require these changes to be made. Through WINEP water companies have a way to evaluate options for achieving sustainable abstraction.
For other sectors the EA will encourage abstractors, regional water resources groups and water abstractor groups to work collaboratively to identify alternative solutions which may reduce or remove the need for the regulatory route for change. The Environment Agency will then consider the alternative proposals and will look to modify its approach so that the required environmental outcomes are still delivered which may be more acceptable to local abstractors with reduced impact on businesses.
The Environment Agency will look to give notice ahead of making changes to licences, or build in the date of the change taking effect into the licence itself (or both). Sometimes these changes will be driven by a legal timeline, and it may not be possible to optimise this period of notice. The Environment Agency recognise that full collaboration may not be possible in every situation, particularly where there may be a need to act quickly to prevent environmental damage, or to remove a risk of damage.
Data for the requirements for abstraction reduction to achieve this aim are provided in two formats and at two time points, now and 2050:
- Catchment summaries
- To help you understand the current and future picture of abstraction by sector, each of the 95 catchments have a summary. This will help each sector to understand the risk of future reductions to abstraction licences, enabling abstractors to seek opportunities to collaborate, secure future access to water, and play their part in addressing unsustainable abstraction locally.
- Waterbody summaries
- To support collaboration and implementation at a local scale, the EA have produced a summary spreadsheet of Modelled Abstraction Reductions for each water body. This aims to help abstractors understand the potential scale of abstraction licence reduction that may be required to meet Environmental Objectives for each waterbody and highlight potential future changes. Allowing abstractors to plan for sustainable water supplies.
This work is based on a series of assumptions which are explained further in the technical appendices. However, they give a starting point for the scale of the challenge and our intention is that you use these to start collaborating within waterbodies to develop new resources and progress towards sustainable abstraction, prior to the Environment Agency taking a regulatory approach to reductions. This process of finding alternative pathways can be progressed via your Regional Group or forming a Water Abstractor Group.)