Modelled Abstraction Reductions for Environmental Flows in England

A spreadsheet from the Environment Agency models potential percentage reductions to water abstraction licenses needed to meet environmental flow requirements for water bodies across England. The data provides a national-scale starting point for planning, indicating the scale of future change abstractors may need to consider. Version 1.3 includes additional water bodies and corrections from September 2025.

Use Cases

• Assess potential future changes to water abstraction licenses based on modelled environmental flow requirements.
• Plan for water resource management at a national scale using percentage reduction estimates.
• Initiate local water body planning discussions using the modelled reduction ranges as a starting point.

Strengths

• Data is based on national-scale hydrological modelling for England.
• Includes corrections and additions as noted in version updates (e.g., 1.2, 1.3).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• The modelled reductions are described as a starting point, not a final answer for each water body.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency

Collection Method

National scale hydrological modelling.

Freshness

Updated to version 1.3 as of September 2025.

Geography

England