Climate change is increasing the risk of drought through a combination of hotter summers and heavier winter rains.
Taps could run dry unless the British Government takes action to shore up England’s water supply amid the growing threat of droughts, a group of peers have warned.
The country’s water system is facing compounding pressures from climate change, population growth, public water supply leakage and water intensive industries, the House of Lords Environment and Climate Change Committee said.
The cross party group said Britain is not short of rain but must better store, manage and reuse water to prevent both drought and flooding as the impacts of global warming escalate, in a report published last week.
Wildfire
As part of this, they said ministers should encourage people to reuse water and harvest rainwater, launch awareness campaigns and improve water efficiency standards in homes as part of a whole society approach to balancing supply and demand.
It comes amid Environment Agency warnings that England could see a public water shortfall of five billion litres every day by 2055 – equivalent to 2,000 Olympic swimming pools.
The country is already seeing an escalation in drought conditions, with water shortages across the country in 2025 being declared a “nationally significant incident” based on the number of areas affected and widespread damage inflicted on the environment and agriculture.
The dry conditions hit crop yields, affected the breeding patterns of some animals, harmed wetlands and river ecosystems, increased the wildfire risk and prompted several areas to impose hosepipe bans.
Threats
Baroness Sheehan, the committee chairperson, said: “Climate change is increasing the risk of drought through a combination of hotter summers and heavier winter rains making the capture and storage of rainwater increasingly important.
She said the experience of 2025 sent a “warning signal to the water and drought management system”, with the country already seeing a dry start to spring in 2026 and the world facing a wave of warmer “El Nino” weather conditions later this year.
“The government must act now to secure England’s most vital resource for the future and work with the public to ensure the taps don’t run dry,” she added.
In its report, the committee recommended the government must build a more comprehensive understanding of threats to England’s water security.
Nature-based
To do this, it should improve impact data and drought monitoring as well as conduct a full environmental and economic assessment that weighs up the cost of inaction against investing in drought resilience.
Changes to regulations could help to drive sectors that are reliant on taking water from the environment need to improve drought resilience, the report added.
The group said this could help make the construction of local resource reservoirs easier for places such as farms and golf courses, and boost the flexibility of the system for licensing abstraction so it better supports water resource projects.
Ministers should also publish a prioritisation plan for an emergency drought by no later than autumn 2026 as well as roll out nature-based solutions more widely in urban and rural settings, the peers said.
The Environment Department (Defra) has been approached for comment.
This Author
Rebecca Speare-Cole is the sustainability reporter at Press Association (PA).
