England drought response moves to weekly meetings

If you've seen this week's rain and wondered whether the drought is easing, the short answer is no. According to the UK government, the National Drought Group has now moved to weekly meetings because dry conditions are still worsening across England, even after cooler weather and recent showers. The step-up follows a COBR meeting chaired by Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the government release says, and it shows how serious the position has become. Officials are now dealing with two pressures at once: drought is still tightening its grip, while hard, dried-out ground also raises the risk of sudden surface water flooding when heavy rain arrives.

The National Drought Group is where many of the main organisations compare evidence and agree next steps. It brings together the Met Office, government departments, regulators, water companies, farmers, the Canal & River Trust, anglers and conservation specialists. Their work is not just about watching the forecast. They are tracking river levels, reservoir storage, groundwater, farming pressures and the practical action each sector will take over the coming months. That matters because this is not only a summer inconvenience. The government's response is meant to protect people, livelihoods and the natural world at the same time. Ministers say a £65 million support package has already been announced for farmers, while longer-term work continues on climate adaptation, including more flood funding and plans for nine new reservoirs.

One of the clearest facts in the release is that 71.3% of England is now in drought. That helps explain why a few wet days do not suddenly put the country back to normal. As the Environment Agency and other experts keep stressing, a drought is only over when rivers, reservoirs and groundwater, the water stored underground, have been properly refilled again. That can take months of steady rainfall, and the damage to wildlife can last much longer. **What this means:** rain falling from the sky is only part of the story. If soil has been dried out for a long time, heavy downpours may run off the surface instead of soaking in. So you can have a strange-sounding but very real situation: drought on one side, and local flash flooding on the other. For readers trying to make sense of that, the simple point is this: fast rain is not the same as stored water.

The Environment Agency says it is monitoring flood risk while also coordinating the drought response. The government says it will invest at least £10.5 billion by March 2036 in new flood and coastal erosion schemes and in repairing existing defences. Alongside that, the Environment Agency says 250 projects completed over the past two years have improved flood protection for almost 62,000 properties. Philip Duffy, the Environment Agency's chief executive, made the position plain in the release. The rainfall is badly needed, but it is not enough to change the national picture. He also used the moment to make a public case for saving water now, arguing that every drop kept in reserve can help rivers, lakes and farms as the pressure continues.

The numbers show how severe and uneven this year has been. According to the government release, England had received only 17% of average August rainfall by 18 August, after what it describes as the driest July in 190 years. The wider pattern has swung sharply: January reached 150% of average rainfall, February 170%, April fell to 38%, July dropped to just 10%, and August has remained exceptionally dry so far. Add five widespread heatwaves, and the result is a rapid loss of water from rivers, soils and reservoirs. River flows are now lower than they were in 2022, the last time England experienced what officials call a flash drought, and half of monitored river flows are notably or exceptionally low for this point in the year. Reservoir storage has fallen to 62.6%, which is 16.3% below what would normally be expected. Groundwater is also continuing its seasonal decline, with the Cotswold limestone aquifer exceptionally low for the time of year. The Environment Agency has recorded 226 drought-linked incidents, including algal blooms, low flows and fish deaths, and says rescue teams have already saved tens of thousands of fish.

Farmers are feeling this in direct, practical ways. The release says harvest has come earlier than at any point in the past 20 years, while crop yields have been hit by heat stress and dry conditions. Livestock are also under strain, and poor grass growth means reduced forage. In East Anglia alone, 288 irrigation restrictions are in place, which tells you how tightly water is now being managed in one of England's most important food-producing regions. The government's £65 million farming package includes £15 million to support around 100 new reservoirs, and the Environment Agency says it is working closely with the National Farmers Union as the pressure grows. There are also sharper disputes over who can take water from where. The Environment Agency says it is especially concerned about the River Severn and has applied to Defra for a Drought Order to reduce how much water companies can abstract, or take, from the river. Southern Water has also applied for two Drought Orders: one to keep taking water from the River Test at normal rates even during low flows, and another for a non-essential use ban. Both are still being considered, according to the release.

No new areas moved into drought in this update, but the map is already broad. The government says drought is in place across East Anglia; Hertfordshire and all of London; the Thames Valley; Devon and Cornwall; Wessex; the West Midlands; the East Midlands; Lincolnshire and Northamptonshire; Kent and East Sussex; and the Solent and South Downs. Cumbria and Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire, the North East, and Yorkshire remain in prolonged dry weather rather than full drought. For households, the clearest sign of strain is restriction. Nine water companies in England have imposed limits affecting 29 million customers: Affinity Water, Anglian Water, Cambridge Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, Southern Water, South East Water, Thames Water, South West Water and Wessex Water. That makes this more than a policy story. For millions of people, the drought is already changing daily routines at home and in the garden.

The expert outlook is cautious rather than comforting. Dr Katie Facer-Childs of the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology says it could take several months for river flows and reservoirs to return to normal. Autumn and winter are the crucial refill seasons, but current forecasts do not point clearly to the sort of sustained wet weather that would quickly repair the damage, especially in the south east. If winter is also dry, she warns, some parts of the UK could be exposed to drought again next year. The Met Office says the weather should turn more changeable into early September, with further rainfall possible and temperatures around average for the start of autumn, though some warmer spells may still appear. Sarah Davies, the Met Office's head of environment and energy, says it is still too early to judge what effect that pattern will have on the longer drought story. This week's rain was also uneven, with much of it falling in northern areas that are in prolonged dry weather rather than full drought.

There is a longer lesson here about how England uses water even outside a crisis. Defra says it is progressing work on mandatory water-efficiency labelling and will respond to consultation work on improving water efficiency in new homes. Water companies and regulators are also working through Water Resource Management Plans that include new reservoirs, desalination plants and transfers between regions, while planning changes are meant to speed up approval for major reservoir projects. The Environment Agency also says its Trent Witham Ancholme transfer scheme in Lincolnshire can move the equivalent of 60 Olympic-sized pools of water a day if needed. National Drought Group members are also backing the Let's Save Water campaign, while the agency says it is carrying out more compliance checks to make sure water is being used fairly. For the rest of us, the advice is much more ordinary, which is exactly why it matters. The government's guidance points to shorter showers, turning taps off while brushing teeth or shaving, fixing leaking toilets, filling washing machines properly, fitting low-flow shower heads and collecting rainwater for the garden. **What it means:** huge infrastructure projects matter, but so do small daily habits. When reservoirs are this low, routine water saving stops being a nice extra and becomes part of the national response.