Final Drought Plan 2025

Who This Page Is For

This page provides clear, accessible information for:
Customers – To understand what drought means for you and how we will support you.
Stakeholders & Researchers – To access statutory documents, regulatory information and technical details of how we plan for drought.

What Is a Drought Plan?

A drought plan explains how we prepare for, respond to and recover from periods of low rainfall. It sets out:

• How we monitor and identify drought conditions.
• The actions we take before, during and after a drought.
• How we mitigate environmental impacts.
• How we communicate with customers and stakeholders.

Producing and maintaining a Drought Plan is a statutory process required by Government who have set out the legal basis for this in the Water Industry Act 1991. We are directed by Welsh Government who also provide the guiding principles for our plan.

Our plan follows the Welsh Government Guiding Principles and Natural Resources Wales’ Technical Guidance. We were instructed by Welsh Government on 4th February 2026 to publish our Final Drought Plan 2025.

What’s in Our 2025 Plan?

Our updated plan explains:

• How droughts develop and how we track early warning indicators.
• The sequence of actions we take as conditions become drier, starting with increased communication and water efficiency messaging.
• What we learned from the 2022 drought and how those lessons shaped this plan.
• How we work with partners including NRW, Ofwat, Welsh Government and local authorities.
• How we engage with customers to promote water efficiency and provide clear information during drought events.
• The environmental safeguards that apply to taking water from the environment during drought.

Read the full plan in our Final Drought Plan 2025 Main Technical Report.

What’s Changed Since the 2020 Plan?

This plan builds on our 2020 Drought Plan and reflects:

• Updated hydrological datasets and refined drought action triggers.
• Improved communications strategy based on customer and stakeholder engagement in 2022.
• Updated Drought Permit and Order options.
• Expanded environmental assessment work, along with commitments requested by NRW.
• Updated alignment with Welsh Government Guiding Principles.

How We Communicate During a Drought

Clear communication is central to how we manage drought. We will:

• Provide early messaging on water efficiency.
• Use multiple channels – website, social media, radio, targeted digital messaging and letters to customers as needed.
• Clearly explain what stage of drought we are in, what this means, and what might happen next.
• Provide additional targeted information where drought restrictions such as Temporary Use Bans are considered.

For more information on our approach to communications through drought, see our Drought Communications Plan.

Protecting the Environment

We take our environmental responsibilities seriously. During drought we will:

• Monitor river, lake and habitat conditions.
• Prioritise efforts to reduce demand and leakage, before taking more water from the environment
• Work closely with our environmental regulators Natural Resources Wales and The Environment Agency
• Assess environmental risks for each drought action and implement measures to minimise any impact.

This includes a programme of Environmental Baseline Monitoring and additional Habitats Regulations Assessments to support site‑specific drought actions.

Contact Us

For information on our current drought status and live reservoir storages click here.

For regulatory, technical or consultation queries, please contact the Water Resources Team.