Talking about water and the importance of managing this precious resource after the wettest February ever may seem like poor timing, writes David Harris, Drought and Resilience Director, South West Water.
But on World Water Day there’s no better time to remind ourselves why conserving water is so important every day of the year.
In 2022 we saw climate change unfold before our eyes as Devon and Cornwall experienced one of the hottest and driest years on record.
As visitors flocked to the area in their millions, our reservoirs hit their lowest-ever levels and we fought to protect river health while supplying clean drinking water to customers, businesses and tourists.
To protect water resources and the environment we made the difficult decision to introduce hosepipe bans – first in Cornwall, and then to parts of Devon – as we moved quickly by adapting former quarries and mines to store water, and invested in schemes to refill reservoirs more quickly.
After a wet winter and through interventions from us and our customers in helping to reduce water usage, we’ve seen a lot of improvement in our reservoir levels.
You would be excused for thinking water resources are no longer a priority for us, but the new climate reality will continue to present challenges to us as a business, which we are meeting head-on.
Meeting the challenges
By 2050, our summers will be on average 2-3 degrees Celsius warmer than today, with at least 20 days a year of extreme heat.
Alongside this, we expect a further 350,000 people will be living and working in the region by this time, further increasing the need for water, with additional demand from business growth over this period.
In addition to those pressures, we also have the challenge of minimising the stress on our natural environment by reducing the amount of water we currently take from our more stressed rivers.
Every time we turn on the tap, we take water from our lakes, rivers and the beautiful habitats they support.
That’s nearly 150 litres of water needed for every person, every day. And, with our growing population and visitor numbers, it equates to more than 140 billion litres of water, every year.
To meet these challenges we need to transform the way we all think about water and how we use it while improving our resilience to droughts with less reliance on drought measures.
As the sole provider of water across our region it’s our job to make sure there’s enough water to meet all our needs, as well as those of the environment, and we’re doing more than ever to achieve this.
Planning and investment
Our Water Resources Management Plan is an adaptive plan that looks 25 years ahead to make sure there is a secure, sufficient and safe supply of water for everyone long into the future while guaranteeing the environment and the wildlife that live here are not just protected but can thrive.
We’re investing £125 million to boost resources in Cornwall by around 45% and in Devon by around 30% by 2025.
Our wider £2.8 billion investment plan across the Greater South West includes upgrading half of our water treatment works, cutting leakage from our networks to less than 10% and creating a water grid to connect all our strategic reservoirs.
It also includes investment in desalination and water recycling, marking a transition to new supplies that are independent of rainfall. These investments are an important step in ensuring resilient supplies in a changing climate.
We’re also investing in large reservoirs, starting with Cheddar 2 in Bristol, which will benefit the wider South West region.
Improvements already in place
While our focus very much remains on increasing resources long into the future, it’s important to understand the interventions we have already delivered, which to date have boosted supplies by around 30% in both Cornwall and Devon.
Since as far back as 15 years ago we have been focused on building additional capacity. As early as 2007 we invested in disused quarries in Cornwall to repurpose as water resources.
Building on this, our proactive acquisition of Hawks Tor in March 2022 provided additional resources for Cornwall when it needed it most.
We know that leakage is as important an issue to our customers as it is to us and we’re always looking at new and innovative ways of reducing leaks across the region, alongside more traditional methods.
We’re now fixing more leaks than ever before – around 2,000 per month – and utilising innovative techniques like satellites in space, drones and even detection dogs to find leaks in challenging terrain.
We are also working to reduce the amount of treated water we use in our business activities.
This year we’ve made changes to several of our wastewater treatment works so we can now recycle water for use in our treatment processes.
A positive ripple effect
The theme of this year’s World Water Day is 'Water for Peace', with a focus on cooperating on water to create a positive ripple effect.
Our customers have been clear that they believe that collaborative working is essential for us to achieve our ambitions, and we want to work in partnership with them to cocreate and develop solutions.
As such, we have discussed our future planning, including the development of our Water Resources Management Plan, with around 26,000 customers.
Water is precious every day of the year and while the key to tackling climate challenges lies in us all working together, we are leading the way with record investments to protect the region’s water resources and enhance the natural environment we’re proud to call home.
