July.16.2026

Confronting the crisis how to tackle drought in an era of growing water scarcity

How water utilities can respond to drought through smart leak detection, demand reduction, network optimisation and long-term resilience strategies for climate-driven water scarcity.

Drought is no longer a future challenge for the water sector; it is an operational reality. Following England's warmest spring on record and consecutive months of above-average temperatures, water resources across many parts of the country are under significant strain. River flows, groundwater levels and reservoir stocks have fallen sharply, while demand for water has increased as households, businesses and agriculture respond to prolonged dry conditions.

The situation has already prompted the introduction of hosepipe bans across heavily affected regions. As waterways continue to run low and forecasts point to further dry weather, utilities face growing pressure to balance supply resilience, environmental protection and customer expectations.

While droughts have occurred throughout the UK's history, the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are increasing. Water companies are therefore being challenged not only to respond effectively when drought conditions emerge, but also to build greater resilience into their networks and operations. At the same time, regulatory changes, environmental commitments and the drive towards net zero are reshaping the options available for managing supply shortages.

Adding to the complexity, traditional drought response measures such as tankering and long-distance pumping are under increasing scrutiny due to their carbon impacts and operational costs. Against this backdrop, utilities must adopt a proactive, data-driven and multi-layered approach that combines operational efficiency, network resilience and customer engagement.

In this article, we explore the critical measures water companies can implement to navigate drought conditions, safeguard supplies and build resilience for the increasingly uncertain climate conditions ahead.

Responding to Drought: More Than Hosepipe Bans

When drought restrictions are announced, public attention tends to focus on what consumers can no longer do: watering gardens, washing cars or filling paddling pools. While public cooperation is essential, drought management extends far beyond customer restrictions.

Behind the scenes, water companies must rapidly mobilise a range of operational, technical and customer-focused measures to protect supplies, minimise water losses and optimise every available resource. Utilities around the world face increasingly frequent and severe periods of water stress, and there are valuable lessons to be learned from international experience. The most successful drought responses combine immediate action with medium- and long-term resilience planning.

Immediate Action: Find and Fix Water Losses Fas

However, drought response should not focus solely on leakage within the water network. The rapid expansion of smart metering programmes has created a powerful opportunity to address water losses and excessive demand on the customer side of the supply chain. Using smart meter data, utilities can quickly identify:

Customers exhibiting exceptionally high levels of water consumption;

Properties showing continuous flow patterns, unusually high overnight usage, or signs of non-essential water use that may indicate hidden leaks, swimming pool filling, extensive garden irrigation, pressure washing, or other discretionary consumption;
Homes and businesses with suspected customer-side leakage.

Targeted communication and engagement campaigns can then encourage these customers to repair leaks, investigate unusual water use and adopt more efficient behaviours. During periods of water stress, these interventions can deliver meaningful reductions in demand far more quickly than traditional mass-market water efficiency campaigns.

How?

Smart metering and advanced analytics provide one of the fastest ways to identify water savings during a drought. Solutions such as ON'connect™ can analyse smart meter data at scale to identify customer-side leaks, continuous flow events and unusually high consumption patterns. By combining meter intelligence with operational data, utilities can rapidly prioritise interventions where the greatest water savings can be achieved.

Beyond detecting customer side leakage, the technology can distinguish between normal and abnormal consumption behaviour, helping identify properties with potential hidden leaks, excessive outdoor water use, swimming pool filling, intensive garden irrigation or other non-essential consumption. This enables highly targeted customer engagement programmes that are more effective than blanket conservation messaging.

The same analytics can support operational teams by identifying and ranking potential leakage hotspots, allowing field resources to be directed towards the areas with the highest potential water savings. During drought periods, this data-driven approach helps utilities reduce demand quickly while improving customer awareness of water usage and wastage.

Alongside customer-side interventions, utilities should intensify network leak detection activities.

Satellite leak detection, an ASTERRA technology supplied by SUEZ, provides a fast and efficient way to identify points of interest across an entire water network. A network-wide scan of trunk and distribution mains is particularly valuable given recent regulatory changes concerning trunk main leakage measurement and reporting. Satellite detection enables utilities to quickly narrow down investigation areas and accelerate repair programmes.

This can then be followed by the deployment of the Nautilus Smart Ball from Aganova, which accurately pinpoints leak locations. Equipped with sensors capable of surveying up to 35 kilometres of trunk main in a single deployment, it travels through live pipelines using the flow of water itself. Nautilus is especially valuable in remote or hard-to-access areas where traditional acoustic surveys can be difficult and costly.

For newly laid mains failing pressure tests, or raw water trunk mains where traditional techniques are less effective, the non-intrusive SUEZ iDroloc® offers an alternative approach. Using helium tracer gas technology, iDroloc® can identify extremely small leaks without interrupting service. Suitable for large-diameter mains, distribution networks and service connections, it provides a highly accurate complement to conventional leak detection methods.

Short-Term Actions: Optimising Water Production

Once immediate leakage and demand reduction measures are underway, attention should turn to making the most effective use of available water resources.

Drought conditions can develop quickly, but the impacts on supply systems often unfold over months. Water companies therefore need the ability to model changing conditions, forecast future availability and evaluate response options before shortages become critical.

How?

SUEZ Aquadvanced® Production Planning enables utilities to simulate a wide range of drought scenarios and optimise supply strategies accordingly. By considering resource availability, abstraction licences, treatment capacity, operational constraints and forecast demand, the platform produces coordinated short-, medium- and long-term production plans

This provides utilities with greater confidence in decision-making while supporting discussions with regulators on temporary abstraction changes or emergency supply measures should conditions deteriorate further.

Medium-Term Actions: Managing Pressure and Reducing Demand

As drought conditions persist, utilities must focus on reducing both network losses and customer demand. Pressure management remains one of the most effective methods for achieving both objectives simultaneously. Excessive pressure not only increases leakage rates but also drives higher household consumption and increases the likelihood of bursts.

How ?

Pressure management strategies, particularly when combined with optimisation tools such as Optimizer™, maintain network pressure at the minimum level required to deliver service standards. By continuously adjusting PRV and pumping set-points in response to changing demand conditions, utilities can reduce leakage while improving operational efficiency.

Just as important is understanding what causes damaging pressure transients within the network. Burst mains can quickly become headline news during drought restrictions and undermine public confidence in water conservation efforts.

How?

Inflowmatix® combines high-speed pressure monitoring with advanced analytics to identify and diagnose transient events. The system enables utilities to pinpoint the root causes of bursts, helping reduce future failures and strengthen network resilience.

Long-Term Actions: Building a Smarter Water Network

While drought response often focuses on immediate challenges, long-term resilience requires a different mindset. Climate projections indicate that periods of water scarcity are likely to become more frequent and more severe, making it essential for utilities to improve operational flexibility and maximise existing assets.

Digital transformation is increasingly playing a central role in this shift. Advanced monitoring, analytics and automation technologies enable utilities to move from reactive operations to proactive management, improving efficiency across the entire water cycle.

Real-Time Network Intelligence

SUEZ Aquadvanced® Water Networks provides real-time monitoring, leak localisation and advanced network analytics. The platform helps utilities identify emerging issues earlier, prioritise field teams more effectively and improve response times.

Beyond leakage management, the solution supports water quality monitoring, operational planning and performance optimisation, giving operators greater visibility across their distribution systems.

Smarter Customer Engagement

Smart metering is widely recognised for its role in leakage detection, but its value extends much further. When combined with analytics platforms such as ON'connect™ Coach, utilities can provide customers with personalised insights into their water usage, helping them understand consumption patterns and identify opportunities to save water.

This targeted approach encourages the adoption of more efficient behaviours and technologies, reducing overall demand while strengthening customer engagement.

Automated Supply Optimisation

SUEZ Aquadvanced® Water Supply enables dynamic, automated control of water distribution networks. By integrating with SCADA and telemetry systems, it continuously analyses real-time conditions and optimises the operation of pumps, valves and reservoirs.

The result is more efficient water movement throughout the network, improved water quality and enhanced operational performance compared with traditional manual control approaches

Strengthening Water Supply Resilience

Water resilience is increasingly becoming a strategic priority for utilities worldwide. It refers to a system's ability to withstand, adapt to and recover from pressures that threaten reliable water supply.

Climate change, population growth, environmental regulations and economic development are all increasing pressure on finite water resources. Addressing these challenges requires investment not only in new sources of water but also in the technologies that allow existing supplies to be managed more effectively.

One option likely to play a growing role in the UK's water future is desalination.

The result is more efficient water movement throughout the network, improved water quality and enhanced operational performance compared with traditional manual control approaches

Extreme Drought: Preparing for Worst-Case

While prevention and resilience measures should always be prioritised, utilities must also prepare for the possibility of extreme drought conditions.

In parts of Africa, Asia and South America, intermittent water supply is already a reality. SUEZ has supported utilities operating under these challenging conditions and has developed specialised tools to help ensure equitable distribution when resources become severely constrained.

How?

Optimizer™ for water scheduling uses asset information, operational constraints, pressure requirements, consumption patterns, flow data and NRW analysis to create an advanced hydraulic model of the network.

The platform generates optimised supply and storage schedules that maximise available resources while maintaining fairness across sub-DMAs and supply zones. In severe water shortages, this can help utilities protect essential services and minimise disruption to customers.

Drought Preparedness: Acting Before the Next Crisis

The drought conditions experienced across England in 2026 highlight a clear reality: drought preparedness can no longer be treated as an occasional exercise. It must become part of everyday operational strategy.

From smart metering analytics and customer-side leakage reduction to advanced leak detection, production planning, network optimisation and long-term resilience investments, utilities now have access to a broad range of proven technologies that can reduce risk and improve performance.

No single solution will solve water scarcity on its own. Success will depend on combining immediate operational responses with sustained investment in smarter, more resilient networks. By leveraging data, prioritising efficiency and engaging customers more effectively, water companies can protect supplies today while preparing for the droughts of tomorrow.

SUEZ has the expertise, technologies and global experience to support utilities through every stage of this journey, from immediate drought response through to long-term resilience planning. The challenge is significant, but the tools to address it already exist. The priority now is putting them into action.