While these schemes don't always provide us with more water, they can strengthen the environment's resilience, improve water quality, and reduce the risk of flooding.
We're working in partnership with The Rivers Trust and Thames Rivers Trust, and we have committed to investing £5 million in catchment partnerships over the next five years. We'll start by building capacity locally before developing detailed catchment plans, helping to achieve successful nature-based solutions for the long-term.
Working with stakeholders, we've identified more than 200 potential catchment and nature-based schemes across the South East. Catchment based approaches and nature-based solutions could play an important role in providing more resilient and sustainable water supplies for the future. We're proposing a range of schemes in our area, including working with farmers to reduce pesticides and nitrates to improve the quality of our watercourses.
We're not diving into more detail in our plan, as these schemes don't specifically provide new water sources. Instead, we're including them in our Business Plan, where we explain more about how they can improve water quality, reduce flooding, and enhance the local environment.