For the National Framework for Water Resources (“National Framework”), the Environment Agency has funded a programme of work to develop local resource options (LROs) for meeting water supply needs in the agricultural sector.
The projects, which are delivered by consultants employed by the Environment Agency, are for self-selecting groups of abstractors who either need more water to expand their operations or are interested in increasing the resilience of existing water supply arrangements.
In Norfolk, we have supported several groups of members with past LRO applications and schemes, including in the Nar catchment, the lower Bure and the Thurne. For the current programme, we are supporting members on LRO schemes in the upper Wensum and on the Yare.
The LRO process combines a high-level assessment of need with a process for developing, appraising and then selecting preferred options for meeting this need. Options considered by members in Norfolk include effluent re-use, managed aquifer recharge (MAR), winter storage reservoirs, “hydrocycles” and other transfers and measures to improve water sharing or trading.
For the top three options that are selected, the LRO process generates:
A case study based on our Nar members LRO scheme is here:
The scheme was for four farms, encompassing 5,000 hectares in west Norfolk, and was designed to enhance resilience to prolonged periods of dry weather and drought.
The options eventually selected for the study were MAR, a hydrocycle scheme and measures to increase water sharing.
