Landowners across the UK are increasingly caught between having too much water and too little.
In recent years, many have faced increasingly challenging conditions, from flooding and waterlogged soils that have made land difficult to work, to periods of hot, dry weather that have hit forage supplies, crop yields and seen private water supplies dry up for the first time in many generations.
According to the Met Office, the UK’s climate has become steadily wetter since the 1980s, due to an increase in rainfall falling during the winter months. Although winter 2025/26 was not the wettest on record for the UK as a whole, several counties did experience their wettest winter ever, and many more ranked within their top five.