Water Cycle Study - March 2010 - North West Leicestershire District ...

Creating the environment for business
There are significant water resources in the resource zone, from both groundwater and surface water sources. The
Derbyshire Derwent catchment is an important long-standing public water supply for the East Midlands and South
Yorkshire. The East Midlands water resource zone is underlain by principal aquifers, and a significant proportion
of public water supply (620 megalitres per day, Ml/d) is sourced from the major reservoirs in the Derwent and
Dove valleys plus several river abstractions. Public water supplies in the zone are also augmented by a transfer
from Rutland Reservoir (Anglian Water).
In managing resources at a strategic / zonal level a demand centre may be supplied with water from sources across
the whole water resource zone, through an integrated zonal distribution network. An increase in demand from new
development or from existing customers increases pressure on all the water resources in the zone, not specific local
sources.
The average annual rainfall across the water resource zone ranges from 1394mm per year in the Derwent Valley, to
634mm per year along the River Wreak (Centre for Ecology and Hydrology website). Demand for supply from
this rainfall is high and the Environment Agency has assessed that this area is under moderate water stress.
4.3.2 Catchment Abstraction Management Strategies
The Environment Agency manages water resources within the environment, principally through the water resource
abstraction licensing system. As part of this, the Environment Agency assesses water resource availability at a
regional and local (catchment) level. The Catchment Abstraction Management Strategies (CAMS) set out how
much water is available for additional abstraction taking into account the needs of the environment, and abstraction
for public water supply and other uses. The results are used to inform future water abstraction licensing strategies
and so provide a useful context in which to understand the environmental constraints affecting the water supply
options available to Severn Trent Water. Section 5.1.2 sets out the implications of these strategies for water
resource development relevant to the study area.
The CAMS relevant to the East Midlands supply zone show that the vast majority of resource units have either no
water available, are over licensed, or are even over abstracted. In these cases the Environment Agency’s licensing
strategy is to close the catchments to further abstraction at low flows, or seek to reduce licence volumes in over
abstracted catchments. A summary of the assessment for each CAMS is provided in the table below, with more
detail provided in Appendix B.
The implications of this are discussed further in Chapter 5. With many of the CAMS units showing that there are
little resources left for abstraction in the supply zone serving North West Leicestershire, the importance of
conserving water and water efficiency will be fundamental to manage the demand from both new and existing
homes to prevent impacts on the environmental resources for public supply.
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© Entec UK Limited
19 March 2010