Water resources

It's our job to ensure there's always enough water available for you to use. We use water from three sources - on average 45% comes from reservoirs, 33% from rivers and 22% from groundwaters.

One of the things that makes us unique is the 'Yorkshire grid'.  The grid enables us to transport water around Yorkshire to where it's needed. This gives us flexibility and helps us protects areas experiencing low rainfall.

It also means that an area isn't reliant on one particular supply if there's an unexpected problem. The grid has helped us avoid hosepipe bans for 12 years. For you, this means that even if you live in an area usually supplied by groundwater you may receive a blended water or reservoir or river water from time to time. Of course stocks of water will vary throughout the year depending on rainfall and usage, but that doesn't mean there's anything to worry about - in summer reservoir levels will sometimes fall to around 50%, or even lower if we've been lucky enough to experience dry weather! But we don't need to worry, as when reservoirs stocks are low we can use our river and groundwater sources.

The Yorkshire Grid

Our aim is to balance future supply and demand, taking into account the potential effects of climate change.  We've presented options such as reducing leakage and new resources so we can be confident there's enough supply to meet demand.

Which water supply we use is all dependent on location, location, location - the hills of West Yorkshire make an ideal home for reservoirs, whereas in the north we tap into the river network and the flatter east is more at home using groundwater.