Water resources management plan support

We have helped multiple UK water companies, including Portsmouth Water, Affinity Water and Sutton and East Surrey Water (SES), with the development of their 25-year Water Resources Management Plans (WRMPs), enabling them to effectively plan for the future, as well as meet regulatory requirements.

WRMPs, which became a statutory requirement in England and Wales in 2007, ensure water companies maintain the balance between water supply and demand over a 25-year period.

In support of their draft 2019 WRMP, we were able to help Portsmouth Water have a more accurate understanding of water availability in their supply area by developing an innovative approach to the calculation of groundwater deployable output. For the first time, this allowed both surface and groundwater resource availability to be represented in a consistent manner within a model and for a levels of service (LoS) analysis to be undertaken, in accordance with the UKWIR Unified Methodology.

Supporting Affinity Water with their 2019 WRMP, we undertook options appraisals, including screening against suitable criteria and providing environmental, social, carbon, operational and capital costings. This work was supported by an environmental assessment to evaluate the likely significant impacts of the plan and reasonable alternatives, contingency, and incident response plans. Bringing together expertise on demand, climate change and design and build decision support, we supported SES Water with their 2019 WRMP, enabling them to successfully meet statutory requirements. We forecasted both supply and demand and undertook options appraisal applying whole life costing principles, environmental assessment, scenario testing, drought planning and stakeholder engagement.