Managing water resources

Every drop of water has a history

 

Some drops flow directly into rivers, others filter through soils into deep aquifiers in a journey taking up to 20,000 years. Water's a renewable resource, being used over and over again.

 

There are more of us using every drop so it's vital we all understand just how precious water is and do our bit to use only what we really need.

 

 

In this dry corner of the UK, we get a third less rain than anywhere else and the water that's available - after plants and evaporation have taken their share - is barely a quarter of what fell out of the sky.

This is why we can’t rely on the region’s rivers and groundwater to supply you with water; we store huge amounts in our manmade reservoirs ensuring supplies are there when the weather’s dry.

 

We work closely with the Environment Agency to look after what we have and ensure  the environment gets its fair share.

 

We plan for the future – for a time when there’ll be more people, different weather patterns, warmer temperatures, and probably less rain.

 

 

Every five years we produce a Water Resources Management Plan, which describes how we’ll cope with the challenges of the next 25 years, keeping  the balance between the water we want and what  we’ve actually got.

We also have a Drought Plan, which shows what we’d do if there was a water shortage due to drought.