A sustainable and resilient water future will not be achieved through incremental change. It requires a rethink of how water is understood and managed – not simply as a resource, but as part of a connected system spanning communities, infrastructure, land use, energy and ecosystems. How well we manage these connections will ultimately determine our progress towards net zero and climate resilience.
The direction of travel is increasingly clear. The challenge now is not defining what good looks like but building on the progress already underway and delivering it at scale. That was the message from British Water’s recent Creating a More Sustainable Water Sector conference in Manchester, UK. The day was characterised by a series of compelling, real-world examples showing how integrated approaches to water are already delivering results.
Keynote speaker, Julia Buckley, MP for Shrewsbury, and Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Water, set the tone: “We have to lean into this holistic approach, it’s the biggest opportunity to get this right.”
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Across Greater Manchester, water is already being designed into the fabric of the city in ways that would have been difficult to imagine even a decade ago.
At Mayfield Park, the River Medlock has been brought back into the open, transforming a former industrial site into a 6.5-acre green space that manages flood risk, improves water quality, and supports biodiversity, while creating a place people actively want to spend time in. Brown trout and kingfishers have returned; water quality has improved; and the park is now anchoring wider regeneration across the city centre.
Transforming a former industrial site into a 6.5-acre green space that manages flood risk
Elsewhere, infrastructure is being reimagined. In Stretford, a former dual carriageway has been partially reclaimed to create a linear park, integrating rain gardens, active travel routes and public space into a single intervention. What was once a barrier has become a connector, both physically and socially.
More fundamentally, the city region is beginning to connect these interventions. The ambition to create linked blue-green corridors – connecting parks, waterways and neighbourhoods – signals a shift from individual projects to system-level design.
This reflects a broader move towards a ‘sponge city’ approach: integrating sustainable drainage (SuDS), rain gardens and combining grey and green infrastructure directly into urban planning.
The need for this shift is being increasingly driven by volatile weather conditions. Across the UK and globally, water systems are experiencing what one speaker described as ‘weather whiplash’ – more flooding, more drought, often within the same year.
In Manchester, this reality is already shaping long-term planning. In one major regeneration area, spanning Manchester and Salford, the response has not been to attempt to eliminate flood risk but to design for it. Recognising that parts of the area will inevitably flood in the future, the strategy is to create a 60-acre regional park that can absorb and manage water, supported by a network of rain gardens and green corridors capturing runoff upstream. This marks a critical shift, from defending against water and nature to working with it.
“The drought and the spikes in surface water flooding and the increased incidence of pollution are, in fact, all symptoms of what has been allowed to go on and gaps that have been allowed to grow,” said Julia Buckley.
Those gaps are not just technical – they also reflect how water systems are planned, funded and delivered.
A central theme running through the Manchester discussions was the need to intervene earlier in the system, before problems escalate.
During the day, Julia Buckley described this as a “left shift” – a move away from reacting to problems once they emerge, and towards investing earlier in prevention, planning and source control.
“The earlier you intervene, the more you have planned ahead… the better bang for your buck,” she said.
In practice, this means shifting investment upstream, addressing the root causes of flooding, pollution and water stress before they become crises, rather than focusing primarily on downstream fixes.
This isn’t just a technical change. It requires stronger partnerships, the confidence to invest before problems become crises and often, political courage.
One of the clearest signals from the day was that the debate around the effectiveness of nature-based solutions (NBS) has largely moved on. With £3.3 billion allocated specifically to NBS as part of the AMP8 investment package, the question is no longer whether they work, but how to deliver them at scale.
Examples across the sector are increasingly demonstrating what is possible. In treatment systems, constructed wetlands and algae-based processes are already being used to remove nutrients, often with lower carbon and lower whole-life cost than traditional chemical approaches. At smaller, rural sites in particular, gravity-fed wetland systems are achieving very low phosphorus levels without the need for additional energy or chemical dosing, while also creating habitat and contributing to local biodiversity.
Taken together, these examples point to a more integrated model of delivery, where water quality, carbon reduction and environmental outcomes are achieved simultaneously, rather than treated as separate objectives.
The challenge is no longer proving the concept but delivering it consistently
The challenge is no longer proving the concept but delivering it consistently.
Financing remains the most visible bottleneck. Not because the investment case is unclear, but because the system through which projects are funded and approved remains fragmented. Plans and proposals exist, but translating them into delivery continues to be slower than it should be.
Alongside this, the sector still tends to operate in silos, addressing flooding, water quality and environmental performance through individual interventions rather than as part of a connected system.
There are also more structural constraints. The system remains largely grounded in an asset-first model, which can make it harder to prioritise approaches that deliver broader, longer-term outcomes. Trust between organisations, particularly where delivery spans multiple stakeholders, continues to take time to build. And the question of long-term maintenance, often overlooked at the outset, remains a practical challenge that needs to be addressed consistently.
Despite these barriers, there is a noticeable shift in how investment in the environment is being framed, reshaping how water itself is valued.
Water is no longer being framed solely as an environmental or regulatory issue. It is increasingly understood as both a strategic risk and a strategic opportunity. For cities, it is about resilience and liveability. For utilities, long-term performance. For corporates, it is now linked to operational risk, supply chain stability and investment decisions.
This is beginning to reshape the funding landscape. New partnership models are emerging, where corporates are investing in water systems and catchments to offset their operational risk. These long-term arrangements, often spanning a decade, link water savings directly to financial outcomes, unlocking new sources of capital.
At the same time, innovation is expanding the sector’s toolkit. Digital tools – particularly AI – are improving visibility, enabling earlier intervention, and supporting more adaptive system management. Together, these developments point toward a shift from managing water as infrastructure to managing it as a dynamic, interconnected system.
The opportunity is clear. There is now growing evidence, experience and increasing alignment across the sector.
What happens next will depend on whether this can be translated into delivery, consistently, at scale, and across systems and sectors, rather than silos.
It will require unlocking new funding models, embedding water earlier in planning and development decisions, moving from least-cost to best-value solutions, building trust across organisations, and designing systems that support integrated delivery.
The foundations are in place; what matters now is how quickly that progress, already visible in cities like Manchester, can be scaled.
Julia Buckley summed up the opportunity: “This is a huge time of change and reorganisation of the water sector because it’s a big opportunity for us, not just to do something different, but to do something significantly better.”
