How on earth do we use so much water? Let’s start with flushing and washing …

With water supplies across England facing increasing pressure, a new campaign is getting us all to think about how we can conserve this precious resource

Do you ever wonder where each drop of water actually comes from every time you run the bath, wash the dishes, launder dirty clothes, water the plants, brush your teeth, flush the loo, or fill up a glass from the kitchen tap to quench your thirst?

No? Well you’re not alone. Many of us give very little thought to our water’s origin story; it simply comes through a pipe … right? Yet imagine how difficult all aspects of modern life would be without a treated public water supply arriving at our front door.

Water flowing without interruption is critical too in our workplaces, restaurants, pubs, hospitals, and key public services keeping the country running and moving. Without it, farming and agriculture would also be unable to put food on our tables.

However, ensuring 24/7 availability of clean H₂O nationwide is a complex task. Much of our water comes from reservoirs, which replenish when it rains, with run-off from surrounding land. It is also taken directly from the environment, out of rivers, lakes, and aquifers. This water is then treated to meet strict quality standards, and delivered through an extensive network of pipes to homes and businesses.

Today though, water must be considered more precious than ever – and increasingly under pressure in some areas. It’s a commodity that experts say we all have a role to play in protecting.

Of course, smaller changes in our daily lives, such as not leaving taps running or taking fewer baths and shorter showers, make a difference. But this must come alongside systemic change from government, regulators, and industry.

With water supplies across England facing increasing pressure, a new campaign – Let’s Save Water – is getting us all to think about how we can conserve this precious resource.

A sustained and measurable reduction in water demand is especially important given climate scientists expect the UK to experience prolonged periods of much hotter weather; this will increase demand for water while also reducing how quickly sources are replenished.

The most recent data shows how 87% of water use across England and Wales in 2024-25 came from our treated public mains system. More than half (59%) of this went straight to households, while a fifth (19%) was used by businesses and public services, such as schools and hospitals. Another 19% was lost to leakages.

The remaining 13% of water usage is not supplied through the treated public mains system with a third of this heading to industry, the same to agriculture, and a fifth providing the means to generate power.

It’s no wonder then – when you do stop to think about where our water comes from – that ensuring there’s enough of it in the future is a national priority.

The Environment Agency has made clear how critical it is over the next few years to “secure supplies for growth, protect the environment, and build resilience to climate change and drought”.

Its report from November 2025 stated: “We are seeing more frequent extreme weather events, with new temperature and rainfall records set almost annually.” The extreme spell of heat in June (2026) is a recent case in point that saw the UK’s all-time temperature record for the month broken.

“These trends are placing increasing strain on our water resilience,” added the report, “and we must act with urgency, assuming this will continue as climate change impacts intensify.”

Regionally, there is very little spare water capacity in certain areas, meaning those places need to see 100% of the average rainfall each autumn and winter for supplies to get back to their baseline.

The driest February-July period since 1976 was experienced in Wales last year (2025) and that’s another reason why the Environment Agency warns: “We can no longer continue to take water for granted.”

Add in the needs of agriculture and power generation, alongside the increasing demands for water by digital infrastructure – eg to cool datacentres so everything from the internet to our smartphones work – and you can see the stark issues ahead. This will become even more pressing as the UK government is focused on building more datacentres to handle the country’s growing use of AI.

The United Nations recently estimated that AI-related water use could match the needs of 1.3 billion people by 2030 (large datacentres consume up to 18m litres a day to keep servers cool). In the UK, the Environment Agency said last year that the AI boom was making it hard to predict water shortfalls as it did not have enough data.

All of this shows why our individual demand for water matters so much. In 2024-25, the average household water use in England was 136 litres a person per day, and as summers get hotter and drier, calls to conserve water will get louder and stronger.

In April (2026) the Environment Agency warned: “It is important all sectors assess and plan for their future needs and understand how pressures on the water environment may affect the future availability of water they rely on now.”

Next time then, as you shower, run the washing machine, put the sprinkler on your parched lawn, or just fill the kettle, maybe you won’t need to wonder where each drop of water has come from … you’ll just have to think about how best you can help to conserve it.

Find out more about the Let’s Save Water campaign and what you can do to make a difference