01Providing the water services society needs, expects and values
UKWIR will enable research which helps improve the accessibility and affordability of water services for all, and delivers transformational customer service.
Water is an essential resource that everyone should have affordable access to. The sector is facing unprecedented challenges relating to the changing needs of society, growing populations, and a greater focus on sustainability and protecting the environment.
Through our collaborative research, UKWIR is working to better understand how customers use water services, how they access support, and how people can be lifted out of water poverty. Water poverty occurs when consumers are struggling or cannot afford to pay for water and wastewater services.
What are the 2030 Research Goals?
UKWIR plans to support research to increase knowledge and improve practices so that by 2030 the water sector will have:
- An understanding of the options to measure water poverty accurately
- An understanding of which households need support and how to engage with them
- Solutions designed to address the barriers to accessing support to eradicate water poverty
- Optimised data, sharing opportunities to identify customers with affordability issues and implement autoenrollment for support
- A holistic approach to households in poverty, understanding how other organisations, including non-water parties, can contribute to tackling water poverty
How UKWIR themes relate to UN Sustainable Development Goals
Examples of our research publications
Defining water poverty and evaluating existing information and approaches to reduce water poverty
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Using Smart Meters to Deliver Savings for Consumers
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For each of our themes we have developed a mission and aims, which we have aligned to the UKWIR Big Questions and linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals to reflect their global applicability.
Helping to address the big questions
BQ7 - How do we achieve zero customers in water poverty by 2030?