Developing strategic resource options to tackle increasing water stress

The recent Environment Agency consultation on determining water stress areas in England looked at how our water supplies are under increasing pressure. This further highlights the need for development of Strategic Resource Options (SROs).

The industry is currently developing 18 SROs with many involving transporting water long distances. With their large geographical coverage such transfers have the potential to provide value en route. The development of a new source or a transfer system could provide improved resilience for those customers supplied by systems in the vicinity.

However, the operational carbon of moving water long distances can be high, and therefore it is important that routes are found that minimise pumping requirements. Maximising the value of a scheme against multiple objectives requires a systematic approach to capturing the opportunities. To realise this and to ensure the scheme is efficiently developed and progressed requires the use of digital planning tools.

Through applying innovative techniques like Stantec’s Automated Route Selector, a powerful GIS tool which will produce an optimal pipeline route, we can design solutions that when selected as part of regional or company plans, will deliver the requirements for biodiversity net gain and net zero carbon, as well as providing a resilient water supply.

In this Institute of Water magazine article, Stantec’s Principal Consultant Jon Darwent explores how SROs will enable water companies to develop ‘construction ready’ solutions for AMP8 that can deliver a legacy for customers, the environment and our communities.