Water in Eastern England is recognised to be a precious resource for our communities, agriculture, industry, our regional economy and the natural environment.
With a growing population, thriving economic sectors, climate change and the increased importance of environmental protection, there is a need to ensure a pathway to sustainable abstraction for the region.
To define and safeguard water needs and ensure we meet future demands, environmental destination provides an outline of the long-term ambition. Introduced through the Environment Agency’s National Framework for Water Resources, this long-term strategy informs where and by how much changes might be needed to ensure a resilient water-dependent environment
Environmental destination definition
Environmental destination quantifies the predicted changes needed in current and future abstraction to meet environmental requirements.
“The environmental destination for water resources identifies where and by how much, water abstraction needs to change to achieve and maintain a healthy water environment, both now and in the future” defines the Environment Agency.
The environmental destination does not outline the pace or ways in which the outcomes will be achieved. WRE, working with members and stakeholders through the regional planning process are looking to develop these options.
The Environment Agency have published their principles for environmental destination, which look to understand the long-term environmental requirements for water resources, to account for a changing climate, to plan for the full range of environmental requirements, using the best available evidence and considering local priorities to inform the pace of delivery. To learn more about these principles, please click here.
Environmental requirements
Environmental destination looks ahead to legislative and Government commitments that aim to protect our water habitats, both now and in the future.
The environmental destination scenarios bring together a range of targets and legal requirements, for example:
- Water Framework Directive (WFD) Regulations – aims to prevent deterioration and achieve good status in all waterbodies by 2050.
Habitats Directive Regulations – outlines measures for ecological improvements for Special Areas of Conservation and Special Protection Areas. - Environment Act – establishes legally binding targets for the water environment and includes measures to enable sustainable abstraction. These, along with a range of wider legislative and policy commitments (e.g. chalk stream), form the basis of the environmental destination calculations.
- The Environment Agency have taken a range of predicted climate change scenarios for 2050 and 2080 and analysed these to look at the effect on our water environment. For example, the effect of drought river flows in the summer or an increased pattern of flooding in the winter. Using these climate change predictions will allow for abstractors and all sectors to plan into the future.
For detailed background information about how the Environment Agency have used environmental flow targets to identify where changes to abstraction may be required, have estimated future natural flows, used the planning scenarios and growth assumptions and provided the results on a regional basis, please refer to the Environmental Destination Technical Report in Appendix C of the National Framework for Water Resources.
Environmental destination ambition
The ambition of environmental destination is to achieve environmental flows that allow for the restoration of degraded freshwater ecosystems and a resilient water environment in the future. The aim is to achieve this whilst allowing abstractors and water users to have access to water for businesses and our communities.
Using a series of scenarios, environmental destination defines the outcome of legislative, policy and government commitments to achieve an improvement in the current abstraction pressures and future requirements, for example from climate change.
It also calculates ‘the gap’ to meet these long-term outcomes and how much abstraction might need to change for rivers, lakes, wetlands and estuaries across the East to enable environmentally sustainable abstraction.
The scenarios used by the Environment Agency are outlined in the table below:
To learn more about the environmental destination objectives, low flow (Q95) ambitions, environmental flow indicator (EFI) and how it all relates to environmental destination – please watch Tom Read’s presentation at our ED Insights Webinar, available here.
Water resource planning
To safeguard a sustainable supply of water, Water Resources East is committed to working with abstractors, stakeholders, businesses and organisations across the region to plan, outline and implement options to meet the ambitions of environmental destination.
The first step in this process was the development of the WRE Regional Plan, published in 2023, which recommended major investment in measures that reduce demand, meet current and future demand and introduce new infrastructure options over the next 25 years.
This 2023 Regional Plan outlined a need of 311 – 897Ml/d of water to be returned to the environment by 2050 to support environmental outcomes in the region. WRE agreed with the regulators to plan for a resilient environment. However, the long-term WRE view was that the preferred environmental outcome met all levels of environmental protection.
This information was then used to inform each of the water companies individual Water Resources Management Plans (WRMP24) and local sector planning, for example strategic planning for the energy sector or agricultural sector with Water Abstractor Groups.
Environmental destination guidance
To meet the ambition of environmental destination within water resource planning, the Environment Agency have released guidance to support regional planning and water company planning.
Within this, there are 9 key steps that are recommended for WRE, as your Regional Group, to work through. These, outlined below, include three main stages: improving information ahead of planning, planning for environmentally sustainable abstraction and presenting environmental destination as part of the Regional Plan.
WRE is currently working through these steps, in conjunction with our technical investigation programme, stakeholder feedback and water company planning.
Scenarios and pathways
Through environmental destination, there are two main areas to be analysed – scenarios and pathways:
Scenarios – the amount of water that we need to leave in the environment in the future
Pathways – detail how to close the gap to meet sustainable flows and when and where to close the gap
Scenarios
- There are two main default scenarios – ‘current’, which is aligned to current legislation and ‘full’, which goes beyond current legislation and incorporates future government policy. These scenarios also take into account the future impact of climate change and require for the environmental ambition to be met in all waterbodies.
Pathways
- Pathways reflect how much abstraction we need to reduce and which abstractors need to make the reductions, along with alternative solutions and options. In addition, pathways takes into account when licence reductions could be made, as it can take time to develop alternative solutions, and where those solutions could be done first, which links to the work on prioritisation.
Through our work in the technical investigation programme, in conjunction with stakeholder feedback, we have the opportunity to develop and feed into alternative scenarios and pathways for environmental destination.
In developing alternative scenarios, we could look to change the default regulatory outcome through:
- Changing the baseline, for example through looking at future water recycling centre discharges, committed public water supply reductions and other interventions and licences that are no longer used and could be revoked
- Change the objective for a waterbody to be included in a scenario, for example through confirming the impact on flow from abstractions via the hydro-ecological modelling, using the Source Impact Library work to show which sources are having an impact on protected features (e.g. SSSI’s, wetlands) and used stakeholder knowledge on local flow conditions
- Change the classification of how sensitive ecology is to flow within a waterbody, for example through using the flow impacts confirmed by the hydro-ecological modelling, change the classification of headwaters or chalk streams from stakeholder feedback
There is also the opportunity to develop alternative pathways. These will look to:
Change how we could meet ‘the gap’ in flows, through changing:
- Certainty of the problem – making sure to have the correct solutions to tackle the problem using the hydro-ecological modelling, Source Impact Library work and stakeholder feedback
- Sectors/abstractions that have abstraction reductions – ensuring that the greatest benefits are realised from abstraction reductions, detailed with information from the Source Impact Library work and stakeholder feedback on means to adapt, impacts of not adapting and alternative solutions
- Certainty in the type of problem – if lower certainty on the impact of flow on conditions is seen, could additional investigation work be carried out
Change when we could meet ‘the gap’ in flow, through reviewing:
- Certainty in the confidence of timing of the problem – could changes to future abstraction or discharges reduce future impacts? Could other planned solutions be put in place, which might mitigate impacts?
- Prioritisation – which areas/waterbodies might be able to be addressed first, using both the suggested metrics from the EA guidance and stakeholder feedback from areas to protect/enhance/create
- Unintended consequences – where could changes in abstraction have an impact on infiltration and groundwater flooding or existing flood risk areas?
Through work on our technical investigation programme and stakeholder engagement, we will look to combine our understanding in these areas to influence our proposed alternative scenarios and pathways to meet environmental destination.
Environmental destination information
To assist with understanding the current information available for environmental destination in your local area/catchment, there are a range of tools available:
Water Resources East
The Water Resources East Catchment Analysis Platform is a GIS based tool that allows a detailed look at information related to a local abstractor or catchment.
Select your catchment from the ‘Catchment Select’ tab or enter your postcode in the search.
You can then turn on and off the layers of interest, using the ‘Map Layers’ tab.
The environmental destination published modelled abstraction reduction information for current, 2050 and 2080 can be found under ‘EA ED Waterbody Modelled Abstraction Reductions’.
WRE are also shortly due to launch a Catchment Dashboard, which includes all of the information relevant to environmental destination, including:
- Catchment – summary of the catchment landscape including: waterbodies; habitat and priority habitat; accessible land and PROW; soil type
- Drivers – explores the factors influencing ED targets including: the Habitats Directive; the Water Framework Directive and River Basin Management Plans; hydro-ecological assessment sampling site locations; identification of monitoring gaps work (flow, water quality and macroinvertebrates)
- Flow – examines the components that contribute to the water balance within rivers including: schematic of the river network; the Environmental Flow Indicator (EFI); Abstraction Sensitivity Bands (ASB’s), groundwater flood risk
- Scenarios – potential scenarios for the future river environment and its requirements including: climate change scenarios, legislative requirements
- Solutions – explores options to achieve a healthy water environment, whilst meeting water demand. This includes modelled abstraction reductions; nature-based solutions and wider options (e.g. rainwater harvesting, reservoir construction, flow improvements)
- Prioritisation – identifying where action should be prioritised to meeting environmental destination targets, based on ED guidance
- Feedback – your opportunity to continue to feed in local evidence, information and solution ideas
Environment Agency
The Environment Agency have published a summary of environmental destination information at a management catchment scale (e.g. Cam and Ely Ouse catchment). This looks at predicted abstraction reductions required to meet current and future needs, split by sector:
Modelled abstraction reduction data has also been provided at a waterbody level, looking at current and future risks. This data is available to download:
Both datasets provide an indication of the needs in the catchment to assist with planning.
Technical investigations
Detailed analysis has been commissioned by WRE to better understand and inform the abstraction changes required to meet environmental enhancements set out through environmental destination.
These include a number of different aspects from hydro-ecological modelling and looking in detail at impacts of abstractions to analysing metrics for prioritising waterbodies.
Water companies in the region are supporting these investigations through their Water Industry National Environment Programme (WINEP) work and the Environment Agency is supporting multi-sector work on this area through its funding to Regional Groups.
Information on our technical investigation programme can be found below:
| Investigation | Description | Project lead (Date of work) | Information links |
| CURRENT PROJECTS | |||
| Abstraction impact on waterbodies | This work develops a Source Impact Library (SIL). SIL is a modelling tool designed to assess abstraction impacts on groundwater levels and river flows. This work has done dedicated simulator runs initially on public water supply abstractions, using regional groundwater models and different licence scenarios to-date. | Groundwater Science (2025;2026) | |
| Hydro-ecological modelling and analysis | This work has built and calibrated a hydro-ecological model to examine the pressures on ecology in waterbodies across the WRE region. Using monitoring locations, screening and a focus on macroinvertebrate data, the hydro-ecological model is looking to understand ecological pressures in a waterbody, including flow, water quality, morphology and land use. The model will then also be used for predictive scenario modelling (including abstraction, climate, water quality) and to support analysis on low flow constraints and the identification of short-term, high-benefit measures for priority waterbodies. | APEM (2025;2026) | Learn more by watching this ED Insights webinar (from 26:00) or reviewing these slides. |
| Environmental monitoring | This work is looking to identify gaps in existing flow, macroinvertebrate, and water quality monitoring across all waterbodies in the WRE region. The project then seeks to highlight, by waterbody, where additional monitoring may be required. | WSP and APEM (2025;2026) | |
| Prioritisation metrics | Using the metrics suggested in the EA ED guidance, this work seeks to compile the metrics for waterbodies across the WRE region, including parameters indicating compliance with flow, status, habitat and community aspects. The work then provides a ranked list by priority and mapping layers. | WSP (2025;2026) | |
| Benefits review of previous abstraction reductions | This work seeks to review hydrological and ecological data to explore the impacts/benefits of historic changes to abstractions and associated schemes. | Groundwater Science (2026) | |
| Public water supply reductions committed | This modelling work is looking to understand the current risk of deterioration from public water supply abstractions on waterbodies. The current work is modelling up to 2036. | Environment Agency (2026) | |
| Alignment of water company discharges | This piece of work will provide updated flows from the Water Recycling Centres across the WRE region for consideration within the SACO tool. | Anglian Water (2026) | |
| SACO tool runs | Using technical investigation, stakeholder feedback, National Framework 2 and wider information, the EA’s SACO (Sustainable Abstraction Calculator and Optimiser) tool will be fun to look at impacts of alternative scenarios and pathways. | WRE (2026) | |
| COMPLETED PROJECTS | |||
| Catchment characterisation | This report details a GIS-based approach for characterising and prioritising fluvial catchments and estuaries in the WRE region, focusing on sustainability, sensitive features, and water quality. | Atkins (2024) | Report link |
| Climate change flow analysis | Through this work, climate change flow analysis was collated and 12 eFLAG climate change scenarios were modelled within pilot catchments (CamEO and East Suffolk). | WSP (2025) | |
| Abstraction pressure screening and characterisation | This approach allowed for screening of abstraction pressure on river reaches within waterbodies, estuaries, wetland SSSI’s and groundwater to suggest prioritisation for environmental interventions and informing decisions for future work. | WSP (2025) | |
| Groundwater flooding risks due to abstraction reduction | This work carried out a region-wide analysis on the potential for increased groundwater flooding risks resulting from reduced abstraction in the unconfined principal aquifers across five key aquifer areas in the WRE region. | WSP (2025) | |
Note: These investigations are following guidance provided from the Environment Agency on environmental destination (available here) and based on the UK Water Industry Research (UKWIR) Environmental Destination Framework (available here).
Catchment engagement
To refine understanding, pressures, priorities and opportunities, WRE is working with local stakeholders in catchments across the region to better understand water use and future plans in local areas.
We are keen that stakeholders (including abstractors, WAGs, businesses, water users, environmental organisations from all sectors) feed in information and local evidence to better inform planning.
It is important that stakeholders particularly feed in:
- Current projects and activities, for example river restoration, on-farm reservoir construction
- Areas to protect, enhance, improve and create, which can inform prioritisation, including for example SSSI’s or river reaches to protect, business activities to maintain, wetland creation opportunities etc
- Locally available evidence that can inform core data, for example where a Reason for Not Achieving Good (RNAG) might not accurately reflect what is seen on the ground, flow concerns, citizen science monitoring information etc
- Solution/option ideas that could create alternative pathways for abstraction reductions, including a Local Resource Option (LRO), nature-based solution, water transfer etc
How can I feed in?
WRE are taking multiple approaches to work with our stakeholders, from a one-to-one basis to catchment workshops and regional events and webinars.
Catchment workshops
WRE have been working with local organisations including Catchment Partnerships and Water Abstractor Groups to host workshops, largely at an operational catchment scale, to provide information on environmental destination and to allow for stakeholders to feed in information, based on the above.
The first series of these took place over winter 2025/2026, with 18 workshops held, over 475 stakeholders attending and over 1000 pieces of knowledge shared.
The results of this information collated will shortly be available through our catchment dashboard.
We are looking to do more workshops, at an operational catchment level, over winter 2026/2027 to share the results from the technical investigation work and delve into the catchment portfolios starting to be developed. Interested in attending? Please get in touch with Teresa Meadows, WRE Stakeholder Lead.
Environmental Destination Insight Webinars
WRE have run webinars to share insights into environmental destination with stakeholders, using technical experts. These are available to re-watch:
ED Insights Webinar, Oct 2025 – Included environmental destination summary with Dr Tom Read and hydro-ecological understanding with Andy Davey
ED Insights Webinar, June 2026 – Included updates on environmental destination guidance, modelling and decision-making, technical investigations, stakeholder engagement and a catchment dashboard introduction and demonstration
One-to-one and bespoke presentations
We are also happy to meet on a one-to-one basis or with your local Water Abstractor Group, Catchment Partnership or organisation, to discuss environmental destination and allow opportunities to feed in information.
We have done this with a variety of organisations and businesses across the region and look forward to this continuing. Would you like to organise a meeting of this nature? Please get in touch with Teresa Meadows, WRE Stakeholder Lead.
Option ideas
Ideas for new solutions or innovative options are always welcomed, at any point. These might be large or small-scale, an initial concept or a project underway. Please continue to feed these in through our ‘Call for options’ form, or directly to WRE via Teresa.
We continue to provide support on the development of new and innovative future solutions through our flagship projects, including the NbS trials, smart agri-abstraction and smart irrigation trials and support of wider initiatives, such as the Cambridge Water Scarcity Group.
Engagement is invaluable to inform the current understanding and evidence base with information on current work and activities, along with developing future options that would assist with meeting the environmental destination outcome. To assist with understanding the current information available for environmental destination in your local area/catchment, there are a range of tools available:
Environmental Destination Timeline
This diagram shows the outline timeline for environmental destination in the Water Resources East region:
Getting involved
Would you like to get involved? If so, we would welcome you getting in touch.
Perhaps you have an idea to store water or use water more efficiently? Do you know of future growth plans in your business or area that are likely to require more water? Do you have a water-dependent business or work in a catchment in Eastern England and would like more information on environmental destination? Are you involved in the ecology of your local river and have monitoring data that could be shared? Would you be interested in attending a catchment workshop?
Please contact: Teresa Meadows, WRE Stakeholder Lead
07701 213767
Key links
National Framework for Water Resources 2025
