Northern Ireland Water (NI Water) has a legislative requirement to produce a Water Resource Management Plan (WRMP) and a Drought Plan as part of its forward planning process. These two plans have been combined into the Water Resource and Supply Resilience Plan (WR&SR Plan).
The WR&SR Plan is an important document for NI Water, as it shows how the company will manage and develop water resources to make sure there is enough water to meet future supply needs. The WR&SR Plan takes into account changes in population, housing, water usage and incorporates any predicted changes to our climate. This includes how water supplies would be maintained during critical periods such as severe winters, drought and also includes a drought plan.
The company has made significant improvements in water resilience for customers since the last Plan was launched in 2012. The new Plan aims to build on this work, ensuring continued high levels of leakage detection, sustained investment in water mains and water efficiency initiatives.
NI Water devised the WR&SR Plan with input from key stakeholders, including the Department for Infrastructure, the Utility Regulator, the Drinking Water Inspectorate, Northern Ireland Environment Agency and Consumer Council NI. In addition, we published the draft WR&SR Plan in July 2019, consulting on this for a period of 9 weeks prior to the development of Final Water Resource and Supply Resilience Plan.
The final WR&SR Plan and associated documents are below: