This drought isn’t a one-off. Water infrastructure needs a longer-term plan

We’re facing our most serious drought in years. 71.3% of the country is officially in drought after the driest July on record for England and Wales. This is also the UK’s fifth heatwave of the summer. Nine water companies currently have Temporary Use Bans in force and national reservoir storage has fallen to 69%, well below the long-term average.

Droughts this severe are becoming a familiar pattern, with England now experiencing its third in the past five years. Each time, the response looks broadly the same: restrictions go up, leakage comes under scrutiny and the sector works to manage the immediate pressure. However, focusing on alleviating the immediate pressure does not build resilience for the next decade. The Environment Agency has already recorded 134 drought-related incidents this year, a reminder that short-term measures alone haven't stopped the pattern repeating.

This summer’s drought conditions have emerged far more rapidly than in previous years. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs describes it as a "flash drought", driven by an unusual combination of exceptionally low rainfall and sustained high temperatures. Drought planning has traditionally been built around slower-moving indicators, but this summer has shown that pressure can escalate within weeks.

Smart meters can help with these rapid changes. Where traditional metering offers a delayed picture of water usage, smart meters provide readings hourly. This gives companies a live picture of how demand is shifting: where leakage is happening, and where a targeted intervention could make the biggest difference.

Smart meter data is essential to managing a drought, but it only works alongside solid infrastructure. Southern Water's Havant Thicket reservoir is one of ten new reservoirs planned across England by 2050, and the first to be built anywhere in the UK since 1991. Combined, the ten reservoirs are projected to add around 700 million litres of water a day. New supply schemes like this take decades to fund, plan and build, underlining a broader reality: improving water resilience requires long-term investment and delivery models that extend beyond a single AMP cycle. 

One way to do that is a single-partner model, where one provider carries responsibility for smart meter infrastructure over 20+ years. It’s a model already proven at scale in energy. Calisen has delivered over 16 million smart meters over the past 24 years, demonstrating how long-term partnerships can provide continuity across multiple regulatory periods. Applied to water, the same principle could give investors a clearer picture of what they're funding and why, while bringing leakage reduction, smart metering and demand management onto the same long-term plan, rather than treating each as projects in isolation. AMP cycle.

The current drought highlights the need to plan and invest for water resilience over decades, not just individual dry years. 27 million customers are already living under restrictions this year and drought incidents are nearing levels seen in 2022 and 2025, presenting a clear pattern. The sector's response needs to match that timeframe. That includes the metering infrastructure behind it, not just the reservoirs in front of it.

Find out more about how Calisen delivers smart water metering at scale.