Funded with a grant from the Environment Agency “Water Resources (Chalk Streams)” programme, this project aimed to pilot water-company based water resource planning methods with a group of members in the Nar catchment.
The River Nar is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and drains a chalk catchment in West Norfolk. Abstraction within the catchment occurs for both spray irrigation and public water supply (PWS) and is from groundwater as well as from the river itself. This project used existing Environment Agency data to assess current levels of flow and explore options for adapting to the reductions in licenced quantities needed to restore abstraction to sustainable levels. From workshops with members, issues considered likely to affect water abstraction and use in the catchment included the following:
As well as different schemes for reducing the level of abstraction, other options that were considered during the preparation of the plan included augmenting the available resources using nature-based solutions (NbS), flood attenuation and storage, effluent reuse and a “hydrocycle” project based on pumping water from the IDB systems in the lower Nar back up into the catchment for storage and use. Recommendations were also made in respect of shared storage schemes and measures to improve flow gauging, so that conditions with sub-catchments can be characterised more accurately.
While the project was helpful in terms of organising non-PWS abstractors in the catchment and engaging them on issues related to their licences, it exposed limitations in the use of “top-down” planning data for sharing future reductions in abstraction volumes. The main lesson learned was that in these circumstances, it is better to work with abstractors using the Environment Agency regional groundwater flow models, and to run these to explore and test alternative water management strategies.