Professor Guy Howard reflects on UK water/wastewater resilience to climate change, based on the government's most recent risk assessment.

Description

The 4th UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA4) highlighted the challenges and resilience to climate change of the water and wastewater sector in the UK. When looking at current adaptation plans and associated strategies, it is clear that while water companies are taking action to build resilience, the extent of those actions is highly variable. Across the four nations, for England, Wales and Scotland the report concluded that more action was needed by 2050 to secure resilience. Prospects are less good for Northern Ireland. Here the conclusion was there was an urgent to improve understanding of the threats from climate change and use this to develop responses given that the risks are very high. Most water companies in England and Wales have convincing plans for tackling drought, and there is reasonable confidence that that regulatory targets will be met by 2040. This is a priority as noted by the Climate Change Commission in the Well-Adapted UK report. It is unclear, however, whether the true water needs to expanded data centres have been fully factored into the design of expanded water storage. It is less clear that water companies are making sufficient investments in managing the risk of damage to their systems from floods. Alarmingly, only one water company had convincing plans to build resilience to threats from fire. Water quality threats are generally well considered, but problems are emerging from chemical cocktails and in some catchments from dissolved organic carbon. Wastewater systems continue to lack resilience and there is an urgent need to greatly increase investments. Private water supplies were identified as particular concern, as they were in CCRA3, as these are typically lacking resilience and there is little support being offered to build resilience.

Speaker

Professor Guy Howard is a Professor of Infrastructure and Environmental Resilience in the Department of Civil Engineering. His research focuses on climate resilience of water and sanitation services, and health systems; on water quality and environmental influences on public health; and on strategies to reduce carbon emissions. He was co-author of the sub-chapter on Water and Wastewater in CCRA4 and in 2023 developed a strategic paper for including climate resilience into work programmes under the WHO/UNECE Protocol on Water and Health. He is now leading work to integrate climate considerations into the WHO Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. Before joining the University of Bristol, Professor Howard spent 16 years at the UK Department for International Development. He spent 6 years at the policy lead for water and sanitation, and was previously the policy lead on water resources.

Other Information

This event is part of the Oxford Water Network (https://water.ox.ac.uk) Michaelmas Term 2026 Seminar Series on the Future of Water in the Thames Basin. Please email owncoordinator@water.ox.ac.uk if you have any specific requirements to be able to access this event.

Flyer image credit: Timo Newton-Sym via Flickr, CC BY SA 2.0.

Description supplied by the event organiser.