We are committed to ensuring there is enough water for both our customers, as well as the environment.
We are one of many businesses that take water from the environment, but because of our unique position and expertise, we work with local farmers and landowners who also abstract water, to plan how they can be more water efficient benefitting both themselves and the environment.
Two catchments, River Cuckmere and River Stour, have been identified as a focus, and our target is to successfully engage with local abstractors through uptake of one or more of the following:
- Water efficiency audit and advice package
- Training package (related to water efficiency, water application, sustainable water use)
- Calibration tests (related to irrigation, pumps etc)
- Involvement in crop trials/other trials to improve knowledge in water demand management/water efficiency/water harvesting and storage;
- Provision of payments to use alternatives to reduce water demand or to fix water leakage; and
- Provision of payments for Ecosystem Services to improve farm infrastructure (to provide resilience by storing water on the farm, investment in grey water/reuse systems, measure actual abstraction and impact on flows, farm improvement to slow water flow and improve recharge).
How have we performed?
Work in year three has focused on the engagement of license holders to determine their current activities and to offer water efficiency support via technical specialists.
Site visits were set up with licence holders to help facilitate discussions around water use and to learn more about the abstractions.
License holders have been successfully engaged this year with two site visits completed in the Little Stour Catchment (12 per cent of licensed abstraction) and one visit completed in the River Cuckmere catchment (33 per cent of licensed abstraction). The two license holders visited in the Little Stour chose not to take up the offer of fully funded water efficiency advice, and the licence holder in the River Cuckmere reported that the abstraction was not operational.
Wider development work has continued this year with the use of high-definition aerial imagery taken by fixed wing aircraft.
The prolonged drought conditions in 2022 provided an opportunity to test this technology in identifying water leaks and high-volume water use. A cross-department team was set up to work with APEM Ltd to work on data analysis and interpretation and then ground truthing results. This approach has proved beneficial, and the company plans to develop this approach further in 2023/24.
Overall performance remains on track with no concerns (year three target outperformed in both River Cuckmere and Little Stour catchments).
Year four will focus on the continued roll out of an engagement programme and offering water efficiency advice to license holders.
We see this measure as key to helping us understand abstraction activities and non-household water use in key drinking water catchments.
You can find out more about our environmental work here.
