---
id: scenarios/england-drought-2026
about:
  label: 'England''s 2026 drought: farms, rivers and reservoirs'
  description: >-
    After an exceptionally dry July, much of England is in drought, reservoirs
    are far below normal and hundreds of abstraction licences are restricted.
    Can farm reservoirs refill this winter for 2027?
  tags:
    - drought
    - England
    - irrigation
    - abstraction
    - reservoirs
scenario:
  place: 'England, with severe drought in parts of the south-west and south-east'
  since: '2026'
  scale: bioregion
domains:
  - water
  - food
  - ecology
  - climate
relations:
  - predicate: example_of
    target: questions/weather-and-climate
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: >-
        Dry weather and drought in England: 16 to 22 October 2026 (Environment
        Agency, GOV.UK)
      url: >-
        https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-2026-summary-reports/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-16-to-22-october-2026
    - title: >-
        Dry weather and drought in England: 9 to 15 October 2026 (Environment
        Agency, GOV.UK)
      url: >-
        https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-2026-summary-reports/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-9-to-15-october-2026
    - title: >-
        Dry weather and drought in England: 24 to 30 July 2026 (Environment
        Agency, GOV.UK)
      url: >-
        https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-2026-summary-reports/dry-weather-and-drought-in-england-24-to-30-july-2026
  created: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed: '2026-10-23'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
By late July 2026 England had received just 7% of its long-term average July rainfall, putting the month on track to be the driest July on record, after three heatwaves.[^3] On 29 July the Environment Agency moved over half of England, London included, into drought.[^3] Farmers harvested early, expected poorer cereal yields, reported more fires during harvest, and began feeding livestock their winter forage; the salad season ended early.[^3] By the week of 16 to 22 October, national reservoir storage was 54% of capacity, about 22% below the long-term average.[^1] On 15 October the government declared severe drought in parts of six counties in the south-west and south-east, mainly because of the low levels of Ardingly and Wimbleball reservoirs.[^1,2] Ten water companies had hosepipe bans in force.[^1] There were 696 restrictions on abstraction licences, formal restrictions in parts of East Anglia, and 1,383 voluntary restrictions halving abstraction in the Thames, Wye and Severn catchments.[^1] The Environment Agency had recorded 411 drought incidents in 2026, more than in all of 2022 (380) or 2025 (321), including 106 confirmed dead fish incidents.[^1]

## Who needs an answer

- Farmers deciding how much to plant for irrigation in 2027; some are considering smaller areas of high-value vegetables because their storage reservoirs may not refill.[^1]
- The Environment Agency, setting and lifting restrictions on abstraction licences to protect rivers, and deciding how far to extend flexibility such as letting licence holders fill reservoirs outside their usual season.[^1,2]
- Water companies running drought permits, orders and hosepipe bans, with particular concern over Ardingly and Wimbleball.[^1]
- The National Drought Group and the canal and river navigation authorities managing closures.[^1,3]

## The domains it chains

Rainfall, soils and groundwater recharge; river flows and the licence conditions tied to them; public supply reservoirs and on-farm storage reservoirs competing for the same winter flows; crops, forage and livestock; fish and algae in low, warm rivers; and canals that depend on reservoir feeds.

## What a twin should let people try

- Winter refill: under a dry, average or wet winter, how full will public and farm reservoirs be by spring, catchment by catchment?
- Licences: how a given set of hands-off flow restrictions trades irrigation water against river flow and fish kills.
- Planting: what a smaller irrigated area in 2027 means for farm income and for the water left in rivers.

## Where to start

The Environment Agency publishes a weekly drought summary on GOV.UK with rainfall, river flows, groundwater, reservoir storage, licence restrictions and incident counts, and says it will publish an agriculture reservoir refill prospect report.[^1]