Our commitment to Jersey’s water future
Every five years, we produce a Water Resources and Drought Management Plan that looks at Jersey’s long-term water needs for the next 40 years, based on climate and population changes. It helps us identify measures to build resilience and reduce the risk of water shortages in the future.
Our forecasts show that the Island could face a water deficit of as much as 8.6 million litres per day by 2035 in a worst-case drought scenario, unless we take action now.
This means investing in demand management and large-scale projects to increase our water supply capacity and help build resilience into our infrastructure. This plan is about being proactive. It helps us prepare for future challenges, while continuing to deliver excellent service to our customers.
Watch: Our strategy – Enough water for the Island, always
Hear from our Head of Water Resilience and Emergency Planning, Mark Bowden, about the critical work we are doing to safeguard the Island’s water supply.
In this short film, Mark summarises our current water supply challenges, the outcome of our 2025 Water Resources and Drought Management Plan and the projects we plan to deliver between now and 2030 to secure and protect our water for our future.
How we’ll meet future demand
We address the supply deficit with a balanced portfolio of demand management measures, water source enhancements, and—if needed—temporary water use restrictions. Our plan meets the forecasted water needs of the island community, supports our ongoing commitment to customer service, and protects the environment. It’s consistent with planning objectives, adaptive, and provides a “no regrets” approach to investment in new infrastructure.
We’ve identified schemes to implement in the next 5–10 years, and those requiring feasibility and planning to ensure availability if future supply needs demand them.
Why we’re taking action now
In 2022, we supplied around 18.7 million litres of water per day to approximately 39,000 homes and 3,400 businesses across Jersey.
Over the next 40 years, we expect people will use water more efficiently, thanks to better appliances and smarter habits. This could reduce average household water use by about 5%. However, because it’s anticipated that Jersey’s population will grow and more homes are being built, overall water demand is still likely to go up.
By 2065, we expect:
the number of homes we supply to grow by 10%
total domestic water use to rise by 9%, reaching 20.7 million litres per day in a normal year.
How we developed this plan
We have looked at more than 100 ideas and narrowed them down using technical feasibility, environmental impact, cost and customer acceptability. We’re taking a balanced approach that includes:
- Reducing demand: smart meters, leak detection and encouraging water-saving habits
- Boosting supply: upgrading existing sources and exploring new ones
- Introducing emergency measures: temporary restrictions if needed during extreme drought.
The final shortlist includes a mix of measures to build our resilience to drought, including:
- new water sources and storage
- infrastructure upgrades
- water reuse
- smart technology and metering.
Our short-term strategy
We’ve set out a short-term strategy for the next five years. This includes:
- expanding La Rosière desalination plant’s capacity by 50%
- starting to rollout smart metering across the Island from 2026
- reducing leakage further through new tools and techniques
- implementing a new stream abstraction point in Fernlands Valley to feed Grands Vaux reservoir
- introduce PFAS treatment by 2030, depending on regulatory requirements
- continuing to strengthen our work to protect reservoir catchments to safeguard our water sources.
These steps will help us stay resilient in most future scenarios. If conditions become more extreme, we may need additional solutions like a second desalination plant or water reuse schemes.
Our preferred long-term plan
Our preferred long-term plan is adaptive against climate and population changes and is assessed against a scenario framework. Immediate no regret options provide a robust service in mid-range and benign futures. In more adverse or worst case futures, further options may be needed, including a second large resource option such as an additional desalination scheme.
- Immediate “no regrets” options – required now in all futures
- Short/medium term options – high chance so prudent to investigate for future implementation
- Potential long-term solutions – only needed in most adverse futures.
Drought resilience
Our supply forecast is based on deployable output (DO), which varies with climate and drought severity. We’ve adopted a 1-in-500-year drought resilience standard. We accept some risk of deficits in extreme events during the first 10 years (up to 2035) and in severe droughts during the first 5 years (up to 2030).
Read our full plan:
Links to UK water resource plans:
Our strategic goals
We have three goals that we will always aim for:
Trusted water
Deliver safe clean water our customers can rely on
Happy customers
Provide great service and listen to your needs
Healthy environment
Protect Jersey’s natural resources, support Island life
Our priorities
We are focusing on three main priorities to achieve our goals:
Enough water for the Island, always
We’re planning ahead to protect your water supply during dry periods and drought, so that you can count on having water when you need it
Keeping water safe
We’re taking important steps to make sure your drinking water stays clean, safe and fully compliant with future water quality standards that the Government of Jersey sets for the Island
Smarter, resilient, future-ready operations
We're investing in our infrastructure to make a difference to the critical public service we deliver. We know how important it is to have safe water you can trust