Legal and environmental experts introduce the fundamental issues in water rights and water law, and discuss the findings of a pilot study entitled ‘Rethinking water rights through stewardship in Anglia and the Northeast of England’.

Climate change, through more severe weather events, including both droughts and floods, is making water resource management ever more difficult. This panel discussion assesses whether and how farmers’ rights to access and use water in England are changing in the light of the transformed environmental policy context.