Environmental Destination

Water is essential for life, the economy and the health of our natural environment. Our rivers, lakes, and groundwater support everything from households and business supplies to food production, recreation and energy generation. To manage our water resources sustainably, we must balance society’s needs with those of the environment so that both can thrive over the long term.

Many waters in the United Kingdom are still under pressure from unsustainable abstraction. Climate change is intensifying these pressures: the record‑breaking summer of 2022 and 2025 demonstrated how hotter, drier conditions can reduce river flows, impact wildlife and threaten water supplies. Demand for water is also growing due to population increases, new housing, agricultural needs, energy production and expanding sectors such as data centres. Without proactive planning, the impacts could be severe—more frequent restrictions on water use, reduced crop yields and risks to food security. A healthy and resilient water environment is fundamental to sustainable growth, economic stability and progress towards net zero.

The Environment Agency has released a National Framework for Water Resources which sets out the government’s strategic objectives for water resource planning to address England’s long term water needs. This framework sets out challenging environmental objectives and describes how we will need to reduce the amount of water we abstract in order to enable rivers and streams to meet their sustainable environmental flow threshold.  The data included in the National Framework can be used to help abstractors consider the scale of future change that may be needed to abstraction licences. This data is to be used as a starting point for the next round of Water Resources Management Plans.

WRW is supporting Public Water Supply (PWS) companies, who are assessing long‑term environmental requirements alongside future water demand to help identify the right mix of solutions—such as reducing leakage, improving efficiency, developing new infrastructure and supporting nature‑based approaches. PWS companies have prioritised their catchments based on the National Framework data and will be focussing on catchments where a reduction in water abstraction is required. So not all catchments will be covered in these investigations.

Each PWS company will use these investigations to develop a clear understanding of the rivers and groundwater in the area, along with current pressures linked to water abstraction and access to water.  This will lead to a long-term strategy for abstractions, ensuring PWS companies deliver their ‘fair share’ in the catchment to improve, protect and enhance flow resilience as soon as technically possible and looking forwards to what may be needed in a changing climate.  They will be looking for opportunities to work with other stakeholders and water users in the catchment where they can develop options together that will benefit the water resources situation in the catchment.  

Our investigations this year will focus on how we can meet the environmental destination objectives for England described in the Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources. While these environmental destination targets have only been defined for catchments in England, we will also continue to work with Natural Resources Wales and our Welsh stakeholders to understand how we can ensure long term sustainable water abstraction and a healthy water environment.

Help Needed From You

The Water Resource Teams within your local PWS companies have been working hard to build a baseline picture for the catchments. This helps us understand the current state of each catchment so we can identify where changes in water abstraction may be needed or where there are opportunities to support ecology. To do this effectively, we need to find the right mix of solutions to ease pressure on the local environment—and this is where your input and partnership is invaluable.

To the right, you’ll find a map showing each catchment, with links below to their page. Each page includes:

• Information about the catchment,

• details of upcoming PWS company run local workshops, and

• a contact form, for when attending a workshop isn’t practical

We know your time is precious, so whether you join a workshop or simply share your local knowledge through the contact form, your insights will help us build a more accurate and informed picture of each catchment.