Wye Water Summit announced after drought-hit summer
Nation.Cymru staff
Farmers, scientists and policymakers will come together for Wales’ first Wye Water Summit following a record-breaking summer which brought Wales its driest July in almost 190 years.
The free one-day summit will take place at the Royal Welsh Showground in Llanelwedd on October 1, bringing together people living and working across the Upper Wye catchment to consider the impact of drought and ways of improving water quality and resilience.
July was the driest recorded in Wales since records began around 190 years ago, while summer 2026 as a whole was the country’s warmest on record.
The free one-day summit will take place at the Royal Welsh Showground in Llanelwedd on October 1, bringing together people living and working across the Upper Wye catchment to focus on practical solutions for improving water quality and building resilience to climate change.
In July Natural Resources Wales declared the whole of Wales to be in drought. Farmers faced poor crop growth and water shortages, while the River Wye experienced exceptionally low flows and rising temperatures.
Organised by CLA Cymru through its Water Wise programme, the summit will focus on catchment-scale solutions rather than policy alone, with an emphasis on farmers sharing practical experience.
The organisation said peer-to-peer learning was already helping improve soil health and water quality across the Wye catchment, with growers using real-time farm data to make better decisions about land and nutrient management.
“At the heart of this work is the strength of peer-to-peer learning, with farmers sharing real experience and demonstrating how data-led decision making at a grassroots level is improving land and nutrient management,” CLA Cymru said.
“There is also a clear need to build confidence in real-time, on-farm data to guide decisions, rather than relying solely on modelling based on outdated information.”
The agenda includes sessions on the current state of the River Wye, collaborative projects across the catchment, barriers to improving water quality, reducing the environmental impact of farming inputs and wider opportunities for river restoration.
The event is being supported by the Welsh Government through the Wye Nutrient Management Board and will run from 9am until 4pm, with refreshments and lunch provided free of charge.
CLA Cymru said the summit was intended to help identify practical, evidence-led solutions that could strengthen both farming businesses and the long-term health of one of Wales’ most important rivers.
More details of the summit are available here
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