WaterSource
Looking after the land, rivers and reservoirs to protect your drinking water for years to come.
Water goes on a long journey before it gets to your tap. Every drop of water that falls from the sky, flows across land then finds its way into rivers, reservoirs and groundwaters before reaching our drinking water treatment works.
Along the way water can pick up substances that affect its quality; these could be naturally occurring or from how land is managed. By adopting effective catchment management actions, we can safeguard water quality at source. This means that during water treatment fewer chemicals and less energy are required to get drinking water right for our customers and protect the environment.
We are committed to looking after our drinking water sources now and for years to come. Our Welsh Water 2050 sets out this long-term commitment in Strategic Response 1: Safeguarding clean drinking water through catchment management.
That is why we want to work closely with land managers, community groups and customers to promote best practice activities in our drinking water catchments – with your support we can achieve a whole lot more! We call this our WaterSource approach.
Where are our catchments?
We take water from over 100 sources across Wales and England.
Most water is taken from rivers and reservoirs, and we also use some groundwaters. The map shows the 11,000km² of drinking water catchment area – this is the land upstream of our abstraction points.
How do we work?
We own less than 5% of land in our drinking water catchments, so we must work with the people that live, work and visit these areas.
Our WaterSource programme seeks to better understand how water quality in our catchments is influenced by land and water use activities and to work collaboratively to safeguard drinking water sources now and for future generations. This programme is delivered through our 5 workstreams below.
- Risk Evaluation: making sure we understand what impacts water quality in our catchments
- Smart Catchments: using innovative methods and technologies to better predict changes to water quality now and in the future
- Research and Innovation: supporting cutting edge science to better understand root causes of water quality change and trial new approaches
- Partnerships and Engagement: working in collaboration with partners and communities to raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding drinking water catchments.
- Collaborative Mitigations: developing best practice methods and co-designing solutions with partners which will deliver multiple benefits for people, water and the environment.
Who do we work with?
We know that activities that happen on land and water can impact water quality in our drinking water catchments. We want to work with everyone who has influence to safeguard our drinking water sources. Here are the key partners we have worked with so far.
How can we work together?
Click on the links below to find out how we work together with others in our drinking water catchments
Collaborative Partnerships
We want to work with others to form collaborative partnerships which help us raise awareness of our WaterSource approach and work together to co-develop and trial local solutions.
We want to work with organisations and partners who can help share our message through their audiences to influence and promote best practice.
This will help to safeguard our drinking water sources and deliver wider benefits such as business efficiency and environmental protection. Examples of activities delivered through a partnership include hosting events and workshops, including WaterSource articles in member/customer newsletters, trialing techniques and creating case studies.
Click here to read more and how to get involved.
Water Group network
We want to build a network of targeted discussion groups in key catchments to help us better understand the activities in our catchments and build local relationships to help raise awareness of the importance of safeguarding raw water quality. Click here to read more about our Water Groups and how to get involved.
This approach is building on the success of our flagship group, the Beacons Water Group (BWG). Find out more here.