Research and analysis

2. Environment Agency actions: Drought prospects for spring 2026

Published 14 November 2025

Applies to England

2.1 Communications 

We are focusing our communication and engagement around drought and dry weather on practical action and collaboration. This will reflect our position as a strategic regulator, operational partner and collaborative leader in managing drought impacts across sectors.  

Our communications will focus on three timeframes:  

• what we’re doing now  

• what could happen next  

• how we build long-term resilience  

We are learning from this and recent droughts to improve how we explain our role, actions and our work with others. We will use research and data to help people understand the situation and why action is needed. This includes climate trends, impacts of hosepipe bans and results from water-saving campaigns.  

We will continue to work with partners such as Water UK and Waterwise to promote water efficiency and resilience.  

We are developing a programme of communications to keep the public informed through winter, as we prepare for spring, and to mark key moments (like the 50th anniversary of the 1976 drought). We will provide regular updates through digital channels, media partnerships, water-related events and conferences, and third-party networks. We will work closely with government departments and local teams to make sure our messages are joined up.  

We will continue to support and host frequent National Drought Group meetings. The Group brings together the Environment Agency, regulators, Met Office, water companies, agriculture and growers, environmental organisations and others. This is to review the drought situation, risks and coordinate the response. 

We will work with members to: 

• strengthen its communication strategy 

• encourage earlier planning 

• increase collaboration 

• amplify members’ communications  

Coordinating plans and messages across members will help widen understanding of actions being taken and actions needed to prepare for ongoing drought. We aim to create clear messages for groups like farmers, fisheries and industry, so everyone knows their role and how they can help. 

With our partners, we’ll share examples of how organisations are preparing for future dry conditions and how to protect water supplies and the environment. We want to inspire others to act too.  

We will continue our engagement with specific groups like farmers and growers and navigation authorities, to discuss their preparations for this winter through to longer-term climate resilience.  

We will keep: 

• sharing drought updates with the public and partners 

• promoting the importance of using water efficiently to help protect the environment  

• supporting Waterwise campaigns 

• collaborating with others to spread key messages 

We’re committed to being open, proactive, and connected, making sure we are a visible and trusted voice in helping England manage drought and use water wisely. 

2.2 Monitoring and reporting the drought 

Each of our operational areas will continue to follow and implement actions from our drought plans through the winter. We will continue to operate our incident response structure until the water resources position has returned to a normal position for the time of year.  

Through the winter we will continue to carry out monitoring and risk assessment activities, including: 

• monitoring a range of indicators including rainfall, river flows, soil moisture, groundwater levels, reservoir storage, ecological indicators, public water supply resilience and weather forecasts – these will be published to GOV.UK to ensure everyone has access to the latest information  

• using the latest prospects information from water companies and other sectors to constantly assess the situation for escalation, and plan for potential continuation of dry weather through winter and spring 

• reviewing the need for additional equipment, such as gauging equipment, to enable more resilience and monitoring and maintain preparedness to respond to environmental incidents caused by drought or prolonged dry weather – we will work with other sectors, especially the water industry, to identify where further monitoring is required 

2.3 Ensuring our assets are in the best possible condition 

We continue to operate our assets as required, plan for a continuation of dry weather, and monitor for adverse effects on our assets caused by potential low river flows.  

Through the winter, we will: 

• review the health of our water resources assets to better inform asset management requirements and make improvements where required – for example we plan to install a second pump at Ryhall on the Gwash to Glen transfer scheme and carry out maintenance to the Bell Weir on the lower Thames  

• understand the performance of our assets and the required maintenance to ensure they stay fit for purpose and without defects 

• maintain gauging station assets, particularly weed cutting 

2.4 Conduct our regulatory activities in a fair and transparent manner 

We will continue to undertake our regulatory activities to protect existing abstractors and the environment, but we will also be fair when dealing with requests from abstractors for support. We will continue to increase our compliance visits to all abstractors in areas that are impacted by drought and quickly deal with illegal abstractors.  

We will: 

• regulate water resources through enforcing conditions on abstraction licences such as ‘hands off flow or level restrictions’ – we will provide advance warnings to abstractors in areas experiencing low flows about the likelihood of reaching conditions to reduce or stop abstraction 

• increase our checks on abstractor compliance with restrictions and abstraction licence conditions, including those introduced temporarily through drought permits 

• work closely with water companies to ensure they are following their statutory drought plans and taking necessary action to protect public water supplies 

• determine applications for water company drought permits and provide technical advice to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) on drought order applications where required 

2.5 Review performance in 2025 and implement improvements  

We will review our performance in 2025 and identify priority learning where we can improve and implement actions before spring 2026. Through rapid learning, we will assess whether we have sufficient staff resilience and reprioritise work to ensure we are ready for the challenges of next year.  

We will make updates to our drought plans, where they are required.