Want to know our plans to cope with water shortage because of a drought?

We all know it’s better to be well prepared in case of challenging circumstances. At Anglian Water we have a Drought Plan which details how we propose to manage water resources during a drought, to protect water resources and the environment.  As part of our statutory requirements we update this Plan every 5 years.

 

Our latest Drought Plan was published in April 2022 (Drought Plan 2022 or DP22), following a public consultation between June and August 2021.  We are in the process of developing our next Drought Plan (DP27), with the draft due to be published for consultation in Autumn/Winter 2025.

 

Our DP22 is made up of several documents, including the main plan, customer and stakeholder summary, appendices and environmental assessments. We have checked to ensure that our Plan does not include any information that would be contrary to the interests of national security and is commercially confidential.  The DP22 documents are available to view and download below:

 

 

Drought Plan 2022

File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Customer and Stakeholder Summary
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 1 (Water Resource Zones)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 2 (Demand Options)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 3 (Supply Options)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 4 (Reservoirs)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 5 (Direct Intakes)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 6 (Groundwater)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 7 (Environmental Assessments)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 8 (Environmental Monitoring Plan)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 9 (Drought Permits)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 10 (Communications Plan)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 11 (TUBs and NEUBs)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 12 (Extreme Actions)
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - Appendix 13 (Lessons Identified)

Environmental Assessments

File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - SEA
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - SEA Post Adoption Statement
File icon AWS Drought Plan 2022 - HRA

Water Resources Management Plan

Every five years we produce a Water Resources Management Plan (WRMP), which our Drought Plan links closely with.  Our current Plan was published in September 2024 (WRMP24) and is available to view.

WRMP24 sets out how we will manage the water supplies in our region to meet current and future needs, looking ahead across the next 25 years and beyond, in order to drive further investment to mitigate challenges such as:

 

  • Climate change
  • Protecting the environment
  • Population growth
     

Our WRMP24 strategy focuses on:

 

  • Demand management - building on our smart metering strategy will allow us to communicate with our customers more effectively, encourage them to use less water, and enable us to identify leaks on customers' properties more quickly.  Demand management is a crutial part of our plan to ensure we have time to assess, plan for, and construct our new supply-side options.
  • Two new raw water reservoirs - one in the Fens and another in Lincolnshire will supply water to around 625,000 homes.  They have the potential to provide other great benefits too, such as wellbeing for communities and new habitats for wildlife.
  • Utilising other sources of water, such as water reuse, desalination and transfers.
     

The WRMP24 also sets out how we will make our water supply system resilient to a 1 in 500-year drought event by 2039 - an improvement from the current 1 in 200-year drought resilience.