Ofwat

Water companies are delivering an unprecedented programme of expenditure over 2025-30, yet customers and stakeholders find it challenging to access easy to understand information about what this will deliver for the environment.

The Clear Waters partnership is working on a roadmap towards improved transparency of environmental outcomes from water company investment.

Citizen scientists collect an enormous amount of data about the water environment, especially around water quality. This could enrich data published by regulators, water companies, and others to better measure and understand the environmental outcomes of 2025-30 investment (and beyond). Clear Waters’ partners want to optimise the use of citizen science data to improve our overall understanding of the impact of water company expenditure on the water environment.

However, there is no agreed framework or common standards in place to enable this to happen 
effectively and no agreed data set. 

Over this one-day sprint taking place at Newcastle Racecourse, you will:

• Map the landscape of citizen science data measuring the impact of water company expenditure. Identity gaps and opportunities for future data collection
• Show how citizen science data, when combined with regulator and water company data, could unlock new insights into the impact of water company investment
• Map real or perceived barriers to using and publishing this data alongside official data
• Co-create trust and transparency models that build confidence in citizen‑generated data and accelerate its use at scale to enrich official data sources
• Explore and prototype enabling technologies, platforms, and workflows
• Explore how data, governance, technology and partnerships could come together into a lasting group or capability focused on long-term deliver

We’re looking for people with a wide range of interests – reflecting the diversity of water company customers and stakeholders.

We’d love the following groups to help us:

• Environmental groups
• Recreational water users
• Citizen scientists
• Water companies, water regulators and sector experts
• Regulators
• Infrastructure providers and local decision makers
• Data experts (or enthusiasts!) and anyone interested in water data 

Questions about the sprint? 
Email: clearwaters@ofwat.gov.uk