Launch of Project SSWAN: Sustainable Solutions for Water and Nature 

With water companies under increased spotlight to find solutions, Project SSWAN has been launched to find positive outcomes through collaboration. Joanna Lewis, Chief Executive of the Wiltshire Wildlife Trust, is here to tell us more.

In this General Election year, water policy is set to be a key battleground, and rightly so. It’s easy to focus on the negatives. Our rivers are badly polluted, with only 14% of rivers in England classed as having ‘good’ ecological status. In Wiltshire, our globally important chalk streams – lifelines for otters, water voles and brown trout - are particularly vulnerable to pollution, because nutrients get concentrated when water levels get low in summer. Water companies bear heavy responsibility for underinvestment in our system.

So why is Wiltshire Wildlife Trust helping to launch a collaboration led by Wessex Water, one of those very water companies? Because we can’t afford only to focus on the problems. Our rivers need solutions. Nature-based solutions, backed by effective monitoring technology. River and wetland restoration, alongside soil-friendly regenerative farming, can slow, store and filter water, reducing the risk of flooding downstream and cleaning water naturally.

Collaboration is the solution

Wessex Water – our water company here in Wiltshire - has been a consistent advocate for nature-based solutions and for removing the perverse regulatory barriers that still stand in their way. Get water sector regulation right, and this could be a turning point not just for our rivers but for nature’s recovery across whole river catchments, via proper investment in nature-friendly farming.

Project SSWAN is the product of a year-long discussion between Wessex Water and national stakeholders, to set out a credible vision for how our water system can be transformed. This collaborative group of environmental NGOs, water companies, and specialists have come together with a comprehensive proposal for regulatory reform. It builds on important groundwork from a range of organisations, including CIWEM’s A Fresh Water Future project.

This proposal is fronted by our Call to Action, which we are asking the Government and regulators to get behind in the hope that, if we can all acknowledge our role in this crisis, we can sooner find sustainable solutions.

Existing regulation of water quality is no longer fit for purpose. The current system binds water companies and those working the land in overly prescriptive ways without focusing on outcomes. This ultimately constrains innovation, with a tendency to favour expensive and high-carbon infrastructure projects over nature-based solutions.

With reform, there could be a win-win-win opportunity for the Government and regulators to link targets and investment across water quality, nature recovery and climate in a way that accelerates outcomes and creates new sources of income for farmers.

If Project SSWAN’s vision were to be implemented effectively, this would create an investment avenue for farmers to find resilient and profitable pathways for nature-friendly farming at scale. This is critical if we are to achieve the Environment Act’s world-leading target to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

Outcomes-based delivery model crucial

Project SSWAN would help rebuild trust amongst actors within catchments, establishing new ways of working, underpinned by collaboration. This could come in the form of trading obligations whereby water companies would pay farmers to restore river-bank habitats and reduce agri-chemical use through regenerative farming, as a cost-effective solution to preventing nutrient pollution of rivers. By shifting to this outcome-based delivery model, new ways of working that mainstream nature-based solutions can be unlocked – ways that seemed previously unachievable.

We’re already seeing this model work in practice. For example, Wiltshire Wildlife Trust has been working with Wessex Water and a diverse group of stakeholders and partners, including the Hampshire Avon Catchment Partnership (HACP), in the globally important River Wylye chalk stream to tackle over-abstraction and pollution.

Our solution is one that is focused on nature and people. Working together, we are restoring natural processes in our rivers and floodplains, helping to slow, store and filter water, as well as restoring habitat for iconic species like salmon and water voles. We have also launched an education and community engagement programme that can help foster connections between the local community and the natural environment, through guided river walks, school education projects and volunteer-focused events.

What has underpinned this work is the collaboration with land managers and wider stakeholders. We’ve seen a desire amongst local land managers to adopt regenerative farming practices that reduce run-off into rivers, with the HACP delivering learning and engagement events to cover new environmental land management schemes and conducting surveys to identify new opportunities for nature restoration.

The outcomes have been encouraging. We’ve created bigger and better-connected habitats that can function naturally, reduce flood risk, purify water and capture carbon. At least 5km of river and 10 hectares of floodplain have been restored so far. The community has also come alive to the project, with hundreds of children and adults building their awareness of the need to protect this habitat and understand the importance of a climate-resilient future.

Our work on the River Wylye has shown that, given a chance to work flexibly and pursue the outcomes the area so desperately needs, real change can be achieved. This is why we are supportive of the aims of Project SSWAN and call on those working in the sector to get involved with the development of this project. Together, we can put pressure on the Government and regulators to reform our waterways and unlock the transformation and innovation our sector is crying out for.

Project SSWAN: Call to action

We face water, climate, and nature emergencies. We need the biggest structural shift in generations to rethink how we finance, regulate, and reform our water system to deliver better societal outcomes.

A new parliament should initiate regulatory reform to. The key steps are illustrated here:

*CIWEM is listed as a supporter of the SSWAN project and an Advisory Panel Member. If you’d like to hear more about the project, please contact info@sswan.co.uk.