Scenarios for resilient drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales

Current drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales is reactive rather than proactive and the array of instruments and measures focuses primarily on what to do when in a drought, but less on how to prevent a drought or to plan ahead for a drought. This paper presents the results of a workshop that was held in late 2016 with stakeholders and researchers from UK drought and water scarcity management - the environment ministry (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), the Environment Agency, water companies, the economic regulator and water consultancies using the explorative scenario technique. The workshop offered the opportunity for unconstrained blue-sky thinking about drought management options based on the question What can happen? and it is useful in cases where there is fairly good knowledge regarding how the system works at present, but one is interested in exploring the consequences of alternative developments in drought management. The workshop developed four scenarios on the topic of resilient drought and water scarcity management in England and Wales in 2065: (1) 'Accepting decline', (2) 'Rising to the challenge', (3) 'Enjoying their luck' and (4) 'Passive acceptance'. The corresponding narratives are presented as are limits of the workshop but also potential uses of the scenarios.