Draft Water Resources Management Plan 2024

We predict how much water we’ll need for people, businesses and the environment in the future and how much will be available to supply. If there’s a shortfall we then identify different ways to make sure we can keep taps and rivers flowing.

This includes helping customers to save water, reducing the amount of water lost through leaks and working with nature to protect and improve the environment we rely on to make sure our supplies are sustainable.

We also look at new sources of water and what new infrastructure we might need to invest in. This includes new and expanded reservoirs, improving how we store water underground, desalination, water recycling and transferring water between our neighbouring water companies and from other regions.

We’re consulting on our latest draft WRMP which looks ahead to 2075. There’s more information about some of the key points from our plan below. This plan will replace our Our current WRMP19, covering the period 2020 to 2070. 

To help explain our WRMP we've prepared a non-technical summary document and taken part in three webinars.

 

Our challenge

The future is uncertain and the size of our challenge depends on the impact of climate change, how many more people will live in our region and how much more water we need to leave in the environment.

We’re more confident about how much we’ll need in the short-term. We’re planning to provide an extra 108 million litres per day by 2035. This includes:

• 6 million litres to meet increased demand
• 2 million litres to adapt to climate change
• 63 million litres to protect and improve our environment
• 34 million litres to increase our resilience to droughts

The further ahead we look, the less certain we are about how much we’ll need. So, we’ve taken an adaptive planning approach.

 

How we plan for the future

To make sure our plans can cope with whatever the future holds, we’ve taken an adaptive planning approach. This includes different points in time (decision points) where we’ll follow a different pathway with the solutions we’ll need – depending on how much water we need.

We’ve outlined a “core pathway” in our draft plan which outlines the options needed in all future scenarios. In 2030, this branches into three pathways depending on the level of population growth we’ve experienced.

After 2035, there are nine pathways we could follow depending on the impacts of climate change and how much water we might need to leave in the environment to improve and protect it.

Between 2025-35 we are planning for:

• 107.8 millions litres of extra water per day
• 8.6 million litres to meet demand from population growth
• 1.2 million litres per days to adapt to climate change - the median impact projected
• 63 million litres per day ton protect the environment
• 34 million litres per day to become resilient to 1-in-500-year droughts (this increases to 60 million litres per day from 2040)

From 2035, we’ve considered nine alternative pathways. These combine projections of population growth, abstraction reduction and the impacts of climate change. We tested our plan against these different futures to make sure it can adapt to the uncertainty we face. In 2035 and then 2040, we’ll decide which of the different pathways we’ll follow, based on updated data and forecasts.

 

What’s in our plan

The options in our plan are based on four priorities.

• Efficient use of water and minimal wastage across society means we’ll help customers reduce how much water they use and cut leaks by at least 50% by 2050
• New water sources that provide resilient and sustainable supplies includes desalination, water recycling, reservoirs and transfers from other regions
• A network that can move water around the region means making the best use of the water we already have and moving it to where it’s most needed
• Catchment and nature-based solutions that improve the environment we rely upon to help increase the resilience of our existing sources.

Our plan contains a mix of these options at different times and in different places. Saving water is really important in the early years of our plan, while later in the plan we rely more on new supplies.

 

How we developed our plan

We worked with Water Resources South East (WRSE) to develop a region-wide plan for water resources. The draft regional plan is reflected in our draft WRMP.

This means our draft WRMP is part of a regional solution, and we’ve identified schemes that could transfer water from new sources developed by other companies.

The options in the draft regional plan are best value, which means they’ll deliver the water we need alongside other benefits like improved resilience, increased biodiversity and environmental protection. In previous plans we’ve had to choose the most cost-efficient options, regardless of other benefits that could be delivered.

WRSE is consulting on the draft regional plan at the same time as we’re consulting on our draft WRMP. You can read more about it at wrse.org.uk.

 

Water for Life – Hampshire

Our draft plan has been developed in parallel with the work we’re doing to secure supplies through our Water for Life – Hampshire programme.

Our draft WRMP includes the key schemes needed to secure water supplies in Hampshire and protect some of our most iconic habitats.

 

Where you can find out more and have your say

Our consultation period has now closed. We’re really grateful for everyone who took the time to ask us a question, respond to our survey or submit a response. We prepared a non-technical summary document to help explain what’s in our plan, as well as sharing our full plan and supporting technical documents.

If you have any questions about what’s in our plan, you can email [email protected].