11 Mar 2025
Photo by Steffen Coonan Last year, the UK government announced plans to deliver 1.5 million new homes in England. However, a new report by Public First warns that 61,600 homes are unlikely to materialise in the next five years due to water scarcity, with local authorities in the east and south-east of England facing […]
13 Feb 2025
New research published in New Scientist says that severe droughts that persist for years have grown hotter, drier and larger since the 1980s. These long-lasting droughts – some of which are extreme enough to be classified as “megadroughts” – can be especially devastating to agriculture and ecosystems. Photo credit: Yusuf Gündüz Rising temperatures […]
19 Dec 2024
The Environment Agency is seeking views on updates to the guideline that water companies in England must follow when they prepare and publish their drought plans by 2027. The Agency has updated the guideline to ensure that all technical information is up to date and lessons learnt from recent research and experience of drought has […]
27 Nov 2024
The Environment Agency has published the outputs of a project exploring new approaches for examining the impact of droughts on English catchments and water supply systems, with the aim of increasing preparedness and understanding the range of interventions to take in different droughts. Photo credit: Tom Fisk Background This project explored new approaches […]
14 Nov 2024
The Environment Agency (EA) has published a consultation on its proposed updated national drought response framework. The EA is responsible for monitoring, reporting and acting to reduce the impact of drought on the natural environment. Photo credit: Kazuend The ‘Drought: how it is managed in England’ document is the updated version of the […]
06 Nov 2024
New York’s mayor urged residents to take shorter showers, fix dripping faucets and otherwise conserve water, issuing a drought watch after a parched October in the city and in much of the United States. A drought watch is the first of three potential levels of water-saving directives, and Eric Adams pitched it in a social media video as a […]
23 Oct 2024
The changing climate means we will see more extreme weather in the coming years, the National Drought Group heard at its latest meeting (16 October 2024), which was attended by Water Minister Emma Hardy. The Environment Agency chaired a routine meeting of the expert group in which it was confirmed that water resources are currently […]
12 Sep 2024
The government says that predicting where future flooding and droughts will strike next in the UK will be made easier under a new project for scientists using the latest tech and real-time data. It will help key bodies, like local authorities and the Environment Agency, to stem the worst of extreme weather’s impact on communities, […]
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