Five regional groups help to co-ordinate and facilitate water resources planning for their regions and are responsible for developing and delivering regional plans. Detailed descriptions for each regional group were provided in the National Framework for Water Resources 2020 and in regional water resources plans which have been . These long-term plans will lay out how a water and sewerage company plans to extend, improve, and maintain a robust and resilient drainage and wastewater system. We would like to see more partnership and collaboration between organisations especially where water resource planning and wastewater and drainage planning can be brought together within water industry planning activities. We would like to see regional groups and water companies look at how pressures such as climate change, population increase, environmental needs and land use change impact on both clean and wastewater management. We are committed to working together with the regional groups and the water industry to understand where common datasets and scenario planning can be used for regional water resource planning, ( WRMPs ) and DWMPs . This will help water companies and other risk management authorities to use long term adaptive planning for water and flooding and coastal change and better coordinated planning for water and wastewater investments. We expect regional groups and water companies to consider options that can provide multiple benefits. For example, options which help with storage of water, providing water resource benefit, can also help reduce and delay surface water hitting the sewerage system, providing drainage and wastewater benefit too. Nature based solutions often have multiple benefits including slowing run-off, increasing infiltration and storage capacity, and improving soil structure, all of which can provide benefit within water resources, water quality and flood risk management. 12.2.4 Water level management planning We recognise the importance of water level management and its interface with water resources planning. We have set out our thoughts on water for peatlands in Section 5. We also want to work closely with organisations such as Internal Drainage Boards to look at how their role could evolve to support more effective water resources management, particularly in delivering local resource options. 12.2.5 Strategic flood risk management planning Strategic flood risk management planning plays an essential role in informing the choices made to manage flood risk in places and catchments. In enhancing our resilience to future flooding and coastal change the plans seek opportunities to enable a greener and cleaner future. At a national level this is set out in the national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy for England ( FCERM strategy) and locally in flood risk plans and strategies, such as flood risk management plans, local flood risk management strategies, drainage and wastewater management plans and shoreline management plans. Strategic flood risk management planning helps to: bolster the resilience of people and places to flooding and coastal change enable people and places to anticipate future climate impacts and put plans and actions in place to adapt to increased flooding and coastal change bring partners together to set the strategic direction for flood risk management and identify common priorities for places inform flood risk capital investment programmes and identify interventions, including identifying opportunities for new FCERM projects align wider investment plans and work programmes between partners including with infrastructure providers identify innovative solutions, for example nature-based solutions, integrated water management as well as developing longer term, adaptive approaches 12.2.6 Water company drought plans Every 5 years, water companies develop operational drought plans that need to align with their overarching strategic 25-year water resources management plans. The actions that a water company plans to take in a drought also need to consider and align, where possible, with the plans of their regional water resources groups. This means water company drought plans should show how they align with the drought plans of neighbouring water companies, and how they can collaborate with other sectors, to help manage a drought more effectively. The regional water resources groups are beginning to play a greater role in drought management. See section 12.5. 12.3 Common planning scenarios and improved access to data Multi-sector planning relies on specialist knowledge and data being shared across sectors. Making the data we have available more visible, transparent, and straightforward to access will allow: common planning scenarios to be applied across sectors, leading to efficiency and consistency of approach a route for water resources planning and environmental investigation outputs to be visible to relevant sectors, which would otherwise be unavailable Our Water Hub is a digital engagement platform designed to make the data, information and reports the Environment Agency hold related to water more easily accessible. The Water Hub will help answer the questions people have without them having to pursue Freedom of Information requests ( FOIs ) or Environmental Information Regulation requests ( EIRs ). This will ensure data users can focus time on key areas of strategy and delivery and support collaborative water resources planning and the protection and enhancement of the environment. By making it simpler to signpost to information, we will improve the interactions we have with our partners and stakeholders. The National Framework presents more complex problems that require ambitious water resource modelling that cannot yet be represented on our Water Hub. To improve transparency, accessibility and user experience, we will be showcasing outputs of the modelling in an interactive dashboard that all stakeholders can access. This will provide the ability to interact with and visualise data and modelling scenarios, download input and output data, figures, or maps, and explore a range of future scenarios. We are also looking at an approach to improve water company submission of WRMP data in the future, including increased efficiencies in data assessment and sharing through web interface and automatic validation and insights. This is based on the developed under the National Framework 2020. Outputs from the tool have already been used to quantify the water future water needs for England in the National Framework 2025.
The approach will build on this to automate extraction, collation, processing, and quality assurance of WRMP data. This will ensure a consistent and reproducible methodology, reduction of human error, and allows for automatic updates when new data becomes available. Further work is ongoing with the water industry and other regulators to identify and agree common planning scenarios to deliver greater consistency and efficiency in water resources planning. These could also be used for wider water planning with the water industry. There is strong support for this, with key opportunities for common scenarios identified on climate change, government demand policies, growth and environmental needs. We are looking to formalise and agree these during 2025 to enable the industry to adopt these in their next statutory water resources plans. Any common scenarios established will be included within the water resources planning guideline. For data external to the Environment Agency, the CaBA data hub provides a curated catalogue of data, maps and applications that support collaborative catchment management planning, including water resources planning. The data is presented to enable partnerships to identify issues and opportunities for collaborative action. 12.4 To deliver these plans and enable the wider inclusive work that supports them, regional groups need a sustainable source of Water companies have, so far, provided the majority of Water company Price Review constraints put in place to ensure that water company These sectors face many of the same challenges as water companies but are less equipped to plan for and manage water resources. To improve resilience and secure future water supplies across these sectors, planning and delivery of resource options is needed, which requires Some progress has been made for the agriculture sector. An package of around 2 million funded by Defra's Farming and Countryside Programme and the Ministry of Housing has enabled water resources planning activity to be enhanced and Local Resource Option studies to be applied to the agriculture sector in 2024/25 and in 2025/6. Some of this Supporting the growth of WAGs has enabled water resources planning and drought planning for agriculture to advance, it is not enough to provide for multi-sector water resources resilience that will meet societal need and government ambition. This includes: engagement and representation - engagement with and appropriate representation of non- PWS sectors in regional groups, including existing abstractor groups and aiding establishment of new local multi-sector abstractor groups environmental investigations - improving confidence in the amount of water needed to ensure that abstraction is environmentally sustainable across sectors and that the levels of investment needed to achieve this are robustly justified developing a methodology for planning and options - assessment of deficits and development of resource options to inform sector-based local and catchment-scale plans and deliver demand and supply-side solutions Regional group This includes: growth and economy (market) - a secure supply of water underpins every home and business in England. Ensuring the supply is resilient will allow water to be available for new housing developments, domestic food security, business and industry clean energy and technology - with new water using technologies developing at speed, such as data centres or hydrogen power generation, a resilient supply of water is key to our Net Zero commitments. The planning and delivery of efficient solutions now will avoid more expensive reactive costs in the future environment - multi-sector solutions are needed now in response to high levels of water stress, to prevent additional environmental degradation and relieve pressure on supplies and resilience. Regional oversight and links to integrated water management, such as through catchment planning, will bolster long-term water resources planning and help drive sustainable abstraction The Environment Agency commissioned an independent study to identify and review potential ways to sustainably fund non-public water supply (non- PWS ) water resources planning activity in regional groups (this supporting technical report is available as an appendix). The review recommended the following three main options for further consideration. 1. Abstraction licence charges scheme The Environment Agency uses charges raised from licensing abstractions of water from the environment to deliver water resources management services and key outcomes for the environment and society. Some repurposing of the charging scheme could allow This may involve reprioritisation of investment areas so that abstraction charges do not need to significantly increase to accommodate an additional use; instead, being partially reallocated towards multi-sector planning. 2. Long-term However, this option may not be stable or sustainable in the long-term due to changing policies and priorities within government. 3. Water company price review The Price Review allows for The option could be sustainable in the long-term, and regional multi-sector planning would form a modest component of the overall revenue raised. Questions would need to be answered as to whether money raised by water companies through customer charges could pay for the benefit of different sectors. There may also be restrictions in how water company revenue could be used by other sectors. To find the right Until a full They will need to prioritise efforts across catchments, sectors or technical areas. 12.5 Regional groups' role in drought planning and management Strong collaboration during drought is critical to successfully mitigate impacts on the environment and all society. The benefits of collaborating between and within sectors have been demonstrated during previous droughts - at a regional level by activities of WRSE and WRE , and at a national level through the National Drought Group. We know climate change will likely increase the frequency and severity of droughts, so it is even more important to strengthen the collaboration around drought at the regional level, to maximise its benefits. We have therefore set an expectation for regional groups to develop a drought statement of intent. This statement will clearly explain the role each regional group will take in both drought planning and management.
It will set out: the activities the regional group will undertake and collaborate on what it won't do how the regional group will work with member organisations and neighbouring organisations or regional groups how it will link with existing drought governance and drought plans its role with other sectors The key benefits of improved regional collaboration are: coordinating interaction and communication across the region, and across sectors facilitating discussion and exploration of collaborative opportunities to share resources consistent approach for implementing water use restrictions (by water companies) As every region is different, with different characteristics and challenges, we know each group may approach its involvement in drought differently. Initially, regional water resources groups should focus on building collaboration and alignment in how droughts are planned for and managed in their region. In the future, this may lead towards regional groups being encouraged to develop a drought plan. Next: 13. Next steps