Drought Permits and Drought Orders: Who Can Change What You Abstract
TL;DR: A hosepipe ban is not the serious instrument. A drought permit is. It lets a water company take water from a source it is not normally licensed for, or suspend its own licence conditions, and the Environment Agency grants it. A drought order goes further and is signed off by the Secretary of State, because it can change someone else’s abstraction. 124 drought permits were issued between 1996 and 2026, and 2025 set the record at 46 in a single year. If you hold an abstraction licence, a drought permit near you can change what you are allowed to take.
Last updated: 29 July 2026
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Key takeaways
- A drought permit lets a water company take water from specified sources, or modify or suspend conditions in its own abstraction licences. The Environment Agency grants it after conservation efforts have been demonstrated.
- A drought order is broader and is determined by the Secretary of State, because it can change someone else’s abstraction or discharge.
- 124 drought permits were issued between 1996 and 2026, with a record 46 in 2025. Over the same period there were 57 drought orders, 2 of them in 2025.
- Emergency drought orders, which allow complete discretion over water use, have not been used since 1976.
- Temporary use bans need no Environment Agency approval at all. Between 2005 and 2026 they affected 70.5 million people across five drought events.
What is a drought permit?
A drought permit is an authorisation granted by the Environment Agency that allows a water company to take water from specified sources, or to modify or suspend conditions contained in its abstraction licences. It is granted only after the company has demonstrated its conservation efforts, and it is the point at which a dry summer stops being a public-information campaign and starts changing what is legally permitted.
That distinction is worth holding onto. A temporary use ban restricts customers. The permit changes the abstraction rules themselves. They often appear in the same news cycle, which makes them easy to conflate, but only one of them alters a licence.
The Environment Agency acts here under a statutory duty in the Water Resources Act 1991 to safeguard water resources. During a drought its local teams both process drought permit applications and make sure abstractors comply with licence conditions, which is the same team doing both halves of the job.
The four drought stages
England’s drought framework runs in four stages after normal conditions, and progression between them uses hydrological thresholds, environmental indicators and expert judgement rather than automatic triggers. There is no single number that flips the switch.
- Prolonged dry weather (yellow). An established period of low indicators for the time of year, with a heightened risk of environmental damage.
- Drought (amber). Prolonged low and notably low indicators, stressing water supplies and potentially reducing crop yields.
- Severe drought (red). Exceptionally low indicators over a long period, risking widespread environmental damage and public supply failure.
- Recovery. Indicators improving and returning towards normal ranges for the time of year. Weekly status is published in the Environment Agency drought summary reports.
Because the stages are judgement-led, an application can arrive before an area is formally in drought. Waiting for a colour to change is not a planning strategy, and the sites that cope best are the ones already watching their own numbers rather than the announcements.
Temporary use ban, drought permit, drought order
Three instruments, escalating in power and in who signs them off. Getting them straight tells you how serious a situation actually is.
| Instrument | Who decides | What it can do |
|---|---|---|
| Temporary use ban | The water company itself, under the Water Industry Act 1991 | Restricts customer uses. No Environment Agency approval needed, public notice required |
| Drought permit | The Environment Agency | Take water from specified sources, or modify or suspend conditions in the company’s own abstraction licences |
| Drought order | The Secretary of State, or Welsh Ministers in Wales | Wider still: change the company’s own discharges, and change someone else’s abstraction or discharge licence |
| Emergency drought order | The Secretary of State | Complete discretion over the uses of water. Not used since 1976 |
The row that should catch a third-party abstractor’s eye is the drought order. A drought permit modifies the applicant’s own licences. A drought order can reach into yours. That is precisely why it sits with a minister rather than with the regulator.
What the record actually shows
The thirty-year numbers are more interesting than the headlines, because they show how unusual the recent past is.
- 124 drought permits issued between 1996 and 2026.
- 46 of them in 2025 alone, a single-year record. That is more than a third of the thirty-year total in one year.
- 57 drought orders over the same period, including 2 in 2025.
- Zero emergency drought orders since 1976, the benchmark event the system is still calibrated against.
- 70.5 million people affected by temporary use bans across five drought events between 2005 and 2026, peaking at 20 million in both 2012 and 2022-23.
Read the 2025 figure carefully before drawing conclusions from it. A record number of permits does not automatically mean a record drought. It also reflects a system that now reaches for the instrument earlier and a regulator processing applications at scale. Either way, the practical message for an abstractor is the same: this instrument is no longer rare, and planning around the assumption that it is would be a mistake.
What it means if you abstract
If you hold an abstraction licence, drought escalation reaches you through three separate routes, and only one of them involves a drought permit at all.
Your own hands-off flow condition
Most irrigation licences now contain a hands-off flow condition requiring you to reduce or stop abstraction when flow falls below a stated threshold. This activates on its own, with no announcement and nobody’s signature, which is why it is the route that catches sites out. We covered the duty in detail in our guide to abstraction licence monitoring.
Section 57 spray irrigation restrictions
For older licences without hands-off flow protection, the Environment Agency can invoke section 57 of the Water Resources Act 1991 to restrict spray irrigation during an exceptional shortage of rainfall. Restrictions typically begin at a 50% mandatory reduction and escalate to 100% if conditions worsen. The Agency must treat all licence holders equally when restricting from the same source.
A drought order affecting your licence
The least likely and most severe route. Because a drought order can change someone else’s abstraction, a third party’s application can end up altering what you may take. This is rarer than the other two, but it is the only one where the change originates entirely outside your organisation.
Five steps if a drought permit is in play
These apply whether or not you are the applicant of one. The first three are desk work.
- Find your hands-off flow threshold. If your licence has one, that number matters more to you than any announcement.
- Check whether section 57 could reach you. Older spray irrigation licences without hands-off flow conditions are the exposed group.
- Identify who else abstracts from your source. A drought permit or order in your catchment is public, and worth knowing about early.
- Measure the source, not just the pump. A hands-off flow condition is about the river or aquifer, so metering your own take tells you only half of it.
- Alarm above the threshold, not at it. The point of monitoring is the hours of warning before the condition bites, not confirmation afterwards.
AQUAIOT builds both halves. The Clamp-on Ultrasonic Flow Meter straps onto a live abstraction main from DN8 to DN100 with no cutting and no shutdown, and AQUAIOT Radar watches the source itself with non-contact 60 GHz mmWave sensing accurate to ±2 mm through foam, vapour and condensation. The AQUAIOT Cloud holds the record and raises alerts by email, SMS or voice as a level approaches a threshold.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a drought permit and a drought order?
A drought permit is granted by the Environment Agency and lets a water company take water from specified sources or modify and suspend conditions in its own abstraction licences. A drought order is determined by the Secretary of State, covers a wider range of actions, and can change the company’s own discharges and someone else’s abstraction or discharge licence.
Does a hosepipe ban mean a drought has been declared?
No. A temporary use ban is imposed by a water company under the Water Industry Act 1991 and needs no Environment Agency approval. It is usually one of the first steps a company takes, and it can be in force while an area is still classified as prolonged dry weather rather than drought.
Can a drought permit change my abstraction licence?
Not directly. A drought permit modifies the applicant’s own licence conditions. A drought order is the instrument that can change a third party’s abstraction or discharge, which is why it requires a ministerial decision rather than a regulator’s.
What is a section 57 restriction?
A power under the Water Resources Act 1991 letting the Environment Agency restrict spray irrigation during an exceptional shortage of rainfall, used mainly for older licences that lack hands-off flow conditions. Restrictions typically start at a 50% mandatory reduction and can escalate to 100%.
How often are drought permits actually used?
More often than most people assume. 124 were issued between 1996 and 2026, and 46 were issued in 2025 alone, which was a record year. Drought orders are rarer at 57 over the same three decades, and emergency drought orders have not been used since 1976.
Watch your own threshold
Announcements arrive after decisions. Your hands-off flow condition arrives without one. AQUAIOT installs flow and level instrumentation on live abstraction points across UK estates, with alerting and reporting on one dashboard, so the threshold shows up as a warning rather than a breach. Browse the AQUAIOT product range or get in touch to scope a site.