Plotting resilience out to 2100

Managing water resources to prevent flooding or droughts is a national concern and regional planning groups are bringing together their work to inform the bigger picture. Ruth Williams looks at the work underway to map out needs for the rest of the century.

Water Resources South East (WRSE) has completed the initial stage of customer research, using evidence from six separate water companies, that will inform a multi-sector, regional resilience plan.

The plan, which is due to be published in 2023, will set out how to manage the demand and supply of water in the south east. The area – including London – is already home to 19 million people consuming up to six billion litres of water each day. As the population booms an extra billion litres of water could be required each day for the next 30 years.

For the first time domestic and business customers of Affinity, Portsmouth, South East, Southern, SES and Thames will be involved in research to bring greater consistency to the longer term plans.

Trevor Bishop, organisational director of WRSE, said the Regional Resilience Plan will set out the area’s needs until 2100, with a decision tree showing the outcomes if different routes are chosen.

“It adapts as the future reveals itself. The decisions to 2050 are critical for planning now but after that will be flexible.”

For example, the public interest commitment to reduce leakage by 2050 leaves a question of what will happen after that year, so Bishop said the WRSE team is wrestling with assumptions for the second half of the century.

The multi-sector plan brings together not only public water supply needs but also demands from industries including energy generation, agriculture, goods and services, leisure and each sector’s resilience to future shocks to understand infrastructure in water can help other industries, and if so, can the costs be shared.

“The resilience aspect of the plan is fundamentally different from a water resources plan so we’ve worked with consultants to look at the whole water system and plan for the resilience of the whole system – from source to tap.”

Environmental resilience is one system, public and non-public supply is separate and public value will overarch with social, economic and wider benefits integrated into that value.

Bishop said the companies have been hugely supportive of the work and have dedicated time and energy away from business-as-usual work to participate. He has worked closely with Affinity’s community and stakeholder lead Clare Carlaw who is steering the project.

“This is not a regulated activity, so it’s created a different working relationship with regulators. RAPID (the Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development) has been phenomenal and given us clear guidance at every step. The project has created a more collaborative approach because they want this to succeed as much as we do,” Bishop said. “Everyone knows if we defer critical infrastructure for another AMP cycle, we are putting ourselves in a really tough spot in the future.”

The first stage of the work, which involved reviewing previous WRMPs and billpayer engagement at PR19, has been completed. The next step includes identifying the priorities people have for their water supply and what they want the regional plan to deliver.

Bishop explained this will include sliders to show how spending on different projects would impact customer bills, and conversely, the effect restricting spending would have on environment and resilience. This is to better inform billpayers of the implications of spending or not.

Concerns about the environment have consistently been a high priority for all customers, and security of supply is equally important to them. Other common trends are that visible, well-known solutions – such as new reservoirs – tend to be preferable to ideas stakeholders are less familiar with – such as desalination.

The work looks beyond the south east as the need to move water around to avoid flooding and drought situations becomes more important.

“Regions don’t exist within a bubble, especially in the south east which is likely to need import from other regions,” Bishop said. “We are bringing in views of customers from Severn Trent, United Utilities on transfer plans.”

Both Ofwat and CCW have endorsed the benefits of consistency in customer engagement, with CCW calling for a centrally managed approach for companies writing their PR24 business plans. Meanwhile the regulator’s approach will centre around understanding people’s views as citizens and as customers separately.

Bishop said the learnings from WRSE’s project will help to inform work for the next price review.