It's our job to manage water resources in England and Wales and to plan how to use them in a sustainable way, now and in the future.
The pressures on our water resources are growing. More houses are being built, our population is increasing and it's forecast we will use more water. Climate change will only add to these pressures.
We have launched two new water resources strategies, one for England and Wales and one for Wales only. They set out how we believe water resources should be managed over the coming decades so that water can be abstracted and used sustainably. Implementing these will help to ensure there will be enough water for people and the environment now and in the future.
The strategies include a series of actions that we believe need to be taken to deliver a secure water supply and safeguard the environment. We've replaced the strategy we produced in 2001 'Water resources for the future: A strategy for England and Wales'.
Water resources strategy for England and Wales
Download the documents from the links below:
Water resources strategy for Wales
This strategy is for Wales only. The nature and scale of the pressures on water resources in Wales are sometimes different than those in England. As a result, our position and approach to dealing with them will vary. Download the documents from the links below. Please note these are bi-lingual documents with the Welsh language appearing first.
Water resources action plan for England and Wales and the action plan for the Water resources strategy for Wales
Read about the actions we will take to implement the aims and objectives in our water resources strategy for England and Wales. We've also published a separate plan for Wales building on the actions set out in our Water resources strategy for Wales.
You can download the documents from the following links:
Water resources strategy regional action plans
We've published seven Regional action plans which show how the actions within the water resources strategy will be delivered at a regional level. You can access each of these via the links below:
Some of the actions will be delivered through River basin management plans and Water company plans.
* The South East action plan is an amalgamation of the superseded Thames and Southern Regional Strategy Actions. These documents are available on request.
How we developed the strategies
We consulted on the main principles of the water resources strategy in 2007. A copy of the consultation document and the summary of responses is available by emailing wrstrategy@environment-agency.gov.uk
Throughout the development of the strategies we published a series of module papers on some of the major water resources issues. These modules provide much of the evidence base that has shaped them.
You can access the publications via the links below and read more about the modules in the ‘Water resources strategy – External briefing note’.
Briefing notes
Module summary papers
