Keeping your taps flowing and toilets flushing throughout the summer

Over the summer months demand for water goes up. With people spending more time outside, tourists arriving and all of us doing more activities, everyone needs more water. So how do we keep water supplies flowing for all our customers?

Our Water Planning Manager, Richard, tells us what goes on behind the scenes to keep you in supply.

Our 13,900 kilometre network delivers 556 million litres of fresh water, per day, to over 2.6 million customers across Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. Every day, we adapt our plans for that day but also for the coming year. When the weather is hot, people use more water, so we need to put more into supply. And it’s not only about how much water to put into supply, it’s also about which river or reservoir to use as a water source, and then how to distribute the treated water from our treatment works.

When there’s an extended dry period, for example, we use more groundwater sources rather than taking supplies from rivers, to stop river levels dropping too low. And when it rains, our reservoirs refill a little. Sadly, just because it rains, it doesn’t mean our groundwater sources are refilled – it can take months for rainwater to soak through the soil and rocks to reach these underground aquifers. Plus, if the ground is dry, the rain will just run off into rivers and streams and won’t soak into the ground.

We can even move water between our sites in tankers, making sure there’s enough water available in each area of our region by injecting it into the network at different points. It’s all about planning ahead as much as possible.

To keep protecting the environment during the summer months, we can use water from our reservoirs to top up rivers that may be getting low. Caring for wildlife living in and around these habitats will help preserve the biodiversity of our blue spaces.

It's not just the weather that affects our water supply. If a pumping station is shut down for maintenance, we can plan to temporarily bring water from another treatment site, linked by our water network, to keep customers supplied with water. Although maintenance work like this may be a challenge to our water teams in the short term, the newly maintained pumping station will be more resilient in the longer term, benefiting the community.

It takes a lot of people to keep the taps flowing, including hydrologists, strategists and operations teams. They analyse data to assess the impact of different factors such as the weather. It’s also about partnerships from across our industry and we’re proud to work with Portsmouth Water and South East Water to help all our customers with their water needs across the South of England.

Keeping our eyes on the water supply and caring for the environment at the same time, mean we can make sure our customers have enough water for their needs all year round, while protecting the wildlife and countryside in our communities.

Water Planning Manager, Richard