Meeting future water abstraction challenges, such as increasing pressures and climate change effects on water resources, mean that water resource managers will need greater flexibility in determining the way water is allocated, especially in the context of licensing policy. Over-abstraction and particularly unsustainable abstraction from rivers can be very destructive to aquatic biodiversity. Therefore, restoring natural flow regimes is fundamental to improving aquatic habitats, and increasing biodiversity. Within England, a set of standards for river flows have been developed to assess the risk of deterioration in ecological status that is posed by changes to river flows. Although applying these ecological flow targets can make the process very simple, the use of such standards can be a challenging area as this does not recognize the uncertainties in applying these standards at a local level, especially in cases where there is a greater pressure on the environment.

To further improve environmental protection and water resources management, a targeted research is being undertaken to meet future abstraction challenges and flow regulation pressures which result in failure to achieve environmental objectives. This includes grouping water bodies with similar hydrological regimes and ecological responses to flow change to determine the feasibility of more localised water management targets. This evidence base is to be used to reform the definition of flow standards and further recommend ecologically appropriate flow regimes in rivers to help set water resources management objectives efficiently and support the classification of the ecological status under the Water Framework Directive.