Managing Water Abstraction Reforming Abstraction and Modernising - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Managing Water Abstraction

Reforming Abstraction and Modernising Regulation

Richard Austen Water Resources Manager - Regulation 1st July 2019

What does Abstraction Reform mean in 2019?

• It is not the proposals in the consultation response of 2016.
• It is about:
• Achieving the goals set out in the Abstraction plan.
• Finding what are the blockers in achieving those goals?
• Finding innovative ways to remove blockers.
• Modernising the way we regulate abstraction.

2

Changes in water resources planning

• NIC call for increased drought resilience
• New National Framework to set out needs

(across sectors and across the nation) and break down barriers to collaboration

• Regional and inter-regional planning to find

the solutions

• RAPID and funding to make sure solutions are

‘shovel ready’

• National Policy Statement to unblock barriers to

development of new infrastructure.

Priorities for regional groups

4

• Building resilience to drought and other

pressures on water resources

• Doing this cost-effectively, considering

regional and inter-regional solutions, including transfers

• Taking account of wider needs
• actively embedding environmental

improvement

• working across sectors (developing shared

infrastructure where appropriate)

The role of a national framework

• December 2019
• Articulating national and regional

water needs

• Setting out expectations for demand

management, new resources and transfers – Reviewing plans against those expectations – Understanding demand from other sectors and removing barriers to collaboration

5

Developing a stronger Catchment Focus

6

• National CaBA Working Group

for Water Resources established

• Launched 4 Initial Priority

Catchments

• Looking to increase the number
• f Priority Catchments shortly.

Priority Catchments – national objectives

• Develop and test innovative solutions to achieve greater

access to water and address unsustainable abstraction

• Promote a catchment based approach for water resources

by providing examples of catchment based management of abstraction, as models for other catchments to follow

• Develop new abstraction licensing strategies for priority

catchments by 2020 / 2021

• Area teams develop local objectives and success

criteria

• Identify common ground between catchments

8

Stakeholder workshops

10 20 30 40 50 60

Fine Tuning SW and GW Flexibility and Highest Flows IDB Managing discharges On-line River flows Rapid water trading Other

Number of ideas proposed South Forty Foot Idle and Torne Cam & Ely Ouse and East Suffolk

South Forty Foot Breakfast event 11 Dec 2018 – EA lead Darren Smith

What are the current blockers to improving access to water? What are the

• pportunities to

improve access to water sustainably?

Rapid trading

• Communicate the difference between ‘flexible abstraction’ and

‘rapid trading’:

• Review process to understand where we can improvements

now:

• Improved guidance
• Potential for new application forms and process
• Working to identify approaches to be trialled in PCs:
• Aggregating licence groups (East Suffolk and CAMEO)
• Potential for pre-approved trades/catchment rules???

9

High flows

• Guidance for assessing high flows and how these can be

licensed

• Emerging issues
• Removing seasonality
• Compliance with eels regs
• Process to enable high flow abstraction
• Popular approach in all PCs
• Looking to work with national stakeholders to develop ideas

10

Education campaigns

CamEO Trial 1: HoF Notifications via Text Message

• Improve access to water
• Allow abstractors to react more quickly to

changing water availability

• Allow more effective planning.

Trial start date: 1st July 2019 The trial is exploring a move away from the existing method of notifying abstraction restrictions from the current phone-in system and letters by post to notification by text messaging to mobile phones. This will:

Water Resources Licensing Service

Modernising the service - Digital Transformation

12

Cross regime working Risk based Focus our regulatory effort Review our legislation Consolidation Consistency in regulation Consistency in format and determination Digital permits

WHY ARE WE MAKING THE CHANGE TO EPR?

Impacts of Dry Weather

14

• Consciously stopped and slowed Priority

Catchment work.

• Provided real opportunities to test Access to

Water work and trading.

• External organizations have reported to us

that they have stopped or slowed work on New Authorizations applications to deal with Dry Weather impacts.