CEO Blog: Turning climate anxiety into infrastructure action

By Paul Horton, Future Water CEO

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For most industries, June's World Environment Day was a prompt for climate action. For water, it was a reminder that we already are acting - and that it still isn't enough.

The question isn't whether the climate is changing. That's obvious. The question is: how do we turn climate anxiety into operational readiness, and keep clean, safe water flowing in an environment that is making it harder to do so?

This is no small task. The United Nations reports that since 2000, flood-related disasters have risen by 134%. Droughts have increased by 29% over the same period. These are not abstract global statistics - they are the direction of travel, and the UK is not immune to it.

The Climate Change Committee's (CCC) recently published A Well-Adapted UK makes that clear. By 2050, the UK could face a daily shortfall in public water supply of over 5 billion litres. Annual flood damage, already costing £3.3 billion a year, is projected to reach £4.5 billion. Parts of South East England were still in drought in January 2026, while Northern Ireland recorded its wettest January in 149 years just weeks later. Our networks were not designed for this - and the CCC is clear that the current pace of adaptation isn't enough.

So what does closing that gap actually require?

It starts with honesty. Operational readiness cannot be built on optimistic assumptions or comfortable progress reports. The Future Water Report Card - a biennial report with its next release in November 2026 - exists precisely for this reason. It gives the sector a picture of where it stands, what is working, and where the gap between ambition and delivery is widening. You cannot manage what you are not willing to measure.

It requires collaboration at a scale the sector hasn't yet fully achieved. Climate risk doesn't respect organisational boundaries - it cascades across systems, infrastructure, and institutions. The CCC is explicit on this point. No single organisation can solve it alone. Our working groups and events bring together engineers, policymakers, and technical specialists to build the kind of coordinated, whole-system responses that operational resilience actually demands.

And it demands a fundamental shift in how we design for the future. The CCC has set a clear target: water supply must be resilient to a 1-in-500-year drought by 2040. That cannot be achieved by optimising existing infrastructure. It requires rethinking what our networks need to look like for a climate that is still changing. Platforms like Networks November and Water Dragons exist to create that space - to stress-test ideas, challenge assumptions, and move the sector from reactive management to forward planning.

The returns on getting this right are real. Early warning systems for floods and droughts alone return more than ten times their cost. The CCC puts the annual investment needed at around £11 billion - with water management in the top three priorities. This is not a cost. It is the economics of staying operational.

The anxiety is understandable. The challenge is hard. But anxiety is only useful if it drives action - and the water sector has both the expertise and the collective will to convert it into something more durable.

The framework is here. Our members are already doing the work - bringing operational rigour, technical innovation, and real commitment to a sector that cannot afford to stand still. Every improvement moves us closer to the resilience needed.

Clean, safe water needs to keep flowing. That means starting now.

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