Over the next 100 years, we’re expected to see more extreme weather events that could impact our water supplies.

This is according to our latest Climate Change Adaptation Report submitted to Defra – the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs – in support of national climate resilience efforts.

In this report, we set out what long-term impacts climate change can have on our water supplies, our infrastructure and our environment.

It has been predicted that we are likely to experience:

Hotter, drier summers
Temperatures in the region could reach up to 40.8 degrees and summers could be 60% drier than they are today.

Warmer, wetter winters
Temperatures in the region could reach up to 20.1 degrees in the winter and could be 30% wetter

More frequent and intense weather extremes
Rainfall in the region could increase by 20% in the summer and 25% in the winter. We could also see increased storm intensity.

What happens with this report?

This report is submitted alongside other organisation reports from a range of critical infrastructure industries including water, electricity and transport.

It allows the UK Government to assess the degree to which the country’s essential services and infrastructure are preparing for climate change and identify any barriers that could prevent this from happening.

The Government will use the information from the reports to feed into the UK’s Climate Change Risk Assessment and National Adaptation Programme, which they produce every five years.

What are we doing to address the risks of climate change?

As a responsible, customer-focused and regulated business, we must maintain a balance between playing our part in delivering climate change resilience and restoring and enhancing the environment – all while keeping our bills affordable to customers.

Our research tells us that customers want us to prioritise investing in climate resilience now to mitigate future risks, despite recent shifts in priorities because of events like the COVID-19 pandemic.

We are continuously integrating climate change risks into our business planning, including our long-term delivery strategy and our Water Resources Management Plans.

In the short term, we are managing our ongoing water supplies, maintaining our water infrastructure and putting in outage contingencies.

In the long term, we will be looking at:

• upgrades to our water treatment and water storage to maintain safe and reliable water supplies
• reducing abstraction to protect the environment including rare chalk streams in Cambridge
• investing in new supplies to provide resilience against the impact of reduced water availability

To learn more about the risks of climate change and to see what we’re planning to do to combat these, take a look at our Climate Change Report Summary.

Climate Change Adaptation Report Summary 2024

A summary of our report on the climate change risks affecting our sector and how we’ll ensure future water supplies for customers in our region. 

Climate Change Adaptation Full Report 2024

Our full report on the climate change risks affecting our industry and details on our future plans.