Setting an Environmental Destination: what water companies need to know

What is Environmental Destination?

Environmental Destination is a requirement for water companies in England and Wales to build environmental considerations into their long- and medium-term plans for water abstraction. It is a 25-year journey, reaching its destination in 2050.

This is the first time the water industry has been required to take a long-term and holistic view of the environment beyond its 5-year funding cycles. Setting an Environmental Destination requires water companies to work within their regional groups, together with other water users, to protect and improve the ecological status of freshwater ecosystems and to ensure long-term compliance with legislation, all under a changing climate.

Our Technical Director for Water at APEM Group, Dr. David Bradley, explains more about Environmental Destination and how it will impact the water industry during the next funding cycle, AMP8.

Where did Environmental Destination spring from?

Environmental Destination was developed from the National Framework for Water Resources, published in 2020 as a collaboration by Defra, the Environment Agency, Ofwat and the Drinking Water Inspectorate. A strategic and forward-thinking report, the National Framework for Water Resources explores England’s long-term water needs. It sets the challenge to develop regional water resources plans, in recognition that planning at a water company level alone is insufficient. It was created to help deliver Defra’s 25-year Environment Plan and subsequent Environmental Improvement Plan 2023.

What are the potential issues for water companies?

Environmental Destination is a new area for water companies, and without clear guidance or a formal framework, work has been slow to start.

The Environment Agency’s default position is increasingly rigid, requiring water companies to achieve default compliance with environmental flow indicators developed in 2008. Although the targets were defined using expert opinion, they do not consider the latest scientific knowledge or changing natural conditions resulting from climate change.

Achieving the default compliance will require shutting down existing abstractions and finding new sources of water. As well as costing the water industry millions of pounds, there is also the possibility that building new pipes, reservoirs and other infrastructure will increase carbon use and aid the destruction of natural habitats, damaging the environment more than helping it. There is also no guarantee that recovering this amount of water will result in any measurable ecological benefit in all water bodies.

What should water companies consider about Environmental Destination?

Water companies should consider better use of existing resources, rather than disrupting the environment with expensive new infrastructure. For example, natural groundwater reservoirs represent a ready-made nature-based solution to water scarcity, with huge reserves of water underground. More work should go into identifying more precisely where existing groundwater sources could be optimised without an unacceptable risk of causing local environmental impacts before shutting down potentially still viable sources.

As well as existing natural water storage, the water industry can use the environmental data collected over the years by the regulators and water companies.

Environmental Destination presents a significant opportunity to tackle the challenges of future water availability, considering the needs of the environment and the population under a changing climate, both locally and regionally. But it should be looked at as a long-term plan. Trying to do too much at once and over-fixing the problem in reaction to public pressure could be prohibitively costly to water companies and the environment.

Under the Environment Act 2021, water and sewerage companies will also have to make long term plans for water quality monitoring. By 2030, all storm overflows and sewage disposal works will, as a standard, require Continuous Water Quality Monitoring (CWQM).