Water Net Gain
All the winners
Innovation fund
The Water Net Gain project is researching new ways we can support farmers to bolster drought affected water supplies and ease associated river health pressures.
It has been awarded £1 million in funding from the third Ofwat Innovation Fund Water Breakthrough Challenge.
Working in partnership with South West Water, the Environment Agency, Saputo Dairy UK and Duchy College, we are working with farmers across the Tamar, Otter and Fowey catchments.
Through this, we will determine the feasibility of a catchment-scale approach where farmers are paid to store water on their land, and how this could improve their farm’s resilience as well as that of wider society and rivers.
The Water Breakthrough Challenge encourages initiatives that help tackle challenges facing the water sector, such as achieving net zero, protecting natural ecosystems and reducing leakage, as well as delivering value to society.
Project Progress
Hidden
Hidden
May 2025
We have developed a draft trading mechanism, which presents the Water Net Gain marketplace, its stakeholders and responsibilities, and the process of the scheme. This mechanism provides the basis of how the scheme could be successful and work for all stakeholders.
We’ve looked into the legal, tax and regulatory implications and spoke to experts, to understand what might be possible consequences, and how to mitigate them if required.
We have delved into the design of Water Net Gain ponds. This includes aspects such as shapes, depth, water source and biodiversity, monitoring equipment, infrastructure for water use, and additional Nature-based Solutions.
With Water Net Gain, we are aiming to create a new scheme which is beneficial for our communities and the environment. This means that we rely on ongoing partnership work and collaboration.
We thank all our partners at Water Net Gain, as well as the external experts we consulted and the local farmers that are accommodating us and sharing their knowledge.
Throughout the year 2025, we are developing and carrying out a Willingness to Accept study, to understand from farmers across the country whether they would be interested in participating in Water Net Gain.
This includes assembling a cost assessment of the whole scheme, to identify costs and benefits for our stakeholders.
We are now creating our demonstration site, which will aim to showcase the various features a Water Net Gain pond will encompass.
Hidden
Hidden
July 2024
Our project team has had a successful first year building partnerships, engaging stakeholders and mapping opportunity areas.
We have formed a partnership across the water industry, farming sector and the local and national Rivers Trust, to enable a co-design approach for the scheme. This includes four stakeholder workshops, to identify concerns and preferences of the farming sector and the water industry for Water Net Gain. The results of these workshops will shape the development of the trading mechanism.
This means that we will be able to develop the best outcomes for all stakeholders, as well as for nature and the water environment.
In the coming year, we will design the trading mechanism for a successful trading scheme whereby farmers are paid for storing and deploying water, and buyers benefit from an increased water resource across the landscape.
We will dive into pond design, to make it work for water and biodiversity, as well as farmers and buyers.
We will identify legal and regulatory requirements for a functioning Water Net Gain scheme.
Having first-hand experience of drought and water use restrictions in our region, and with more water resource deficits predicted by 2050, we will be exploring the potential with the farming community for new ponds and lakes to create water storage ‘batteries’.
These ecologically connected and distributive ‘smart ponds’ would enhance water retention on land, charging during the winter, and enabling farmers during times of summer drought to either use the water for on-farm needs, thereby alleviating demand on the mains supply, or to sell to recharge our rivers via water companies adding to the water supply grid.”
Additional Benefits
Providing freshwater to rivers during droughts has many benefits. It can include diluting pollution build-up not managed through current agricultural water quality incentivisation schemes. Nature-based water retention solutions such as healthy soils, woodlands and wetlands can also improve flood protection and aquatic biodiversity.
Learn more about Water Net Gain
In this video our CEO Dr Laurence Couldrick shares details from the wider OFWAT Innovation Catalyst proposal.
He highlights the aims and objectives of the proposal to capture a distributed rainwater bank for the future.
Please contact us via the form below if you are a land manager interested in finding out more about water storage solutions on your land.
Please note that this is a research and development project, initially focused in the Tamar, Otter and Fowey catchments. We can forward your details to our farm advisors in other areas if you wish to find out about other options and/or be informed about Water Net Gain development and future opportunities in the region.
The Water Net Gain project is one of 16 solutions being awarded a share of £40 million via Ofwat’s Innovation Fund Water Breakthrough Challenge 3.
