Some effects of climate change are unavoidable due to historic greenhouse gas emissions. Expected changes in the frequency and intensity of droughts and other extreme weather conditions will be felt across our business.
We will also face indirect impacts, such as increased demand for water. We need to adapt to these changing pressures and keep up to date with the latest thinking on climate change.
We have begun the process of adapting our sites in our current five-year business plan, running up to 2015. We have begun working with Ofwat, the Environment Agency, the UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP) and key academics to establish how best to apply the UK Climate Projections 09 (UKCP09) to water resource planning.
We have identified that we need to do more to protect our major sites from flooding, and intend to improve flood resilience at 17 of our water and wastewater sites by 2015. In addition, we also raised the design standard for sewers that we plan to install over the next five years, to help improve their capacity to cope with heavier storms.
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