Climate change is altering weather patterns to bring longer periods of both hot, dry weather and heavy rainfall. 5.2 million UK properties are now threatened by flooding, but The Environment Agency also predicts that demand for water in southern England may outstrip supply in the next 20 years. Conventional solutions to these problems involve large-scale, expensive infrastructure projects, installed in a top-down fashion by the water industry.

The MAGIC project (Mobilising Adaptation: Governance of Infrastructure through Co-Production) demonstrates the value of an alternative, community-led approach. We argue that many small, distributed interventions in a local community can have a demonstrable impact on reducing flood risk and pollution, while also engaging local communities with rainwater management. We call this approach Community Water Management.

For example, many people install a water butt to get a supply of free, non-drinking water for the garden or for car-washing. But water butts can also help us deal with our increasingly extreme weather:

• they can be part of the solution to preventing flooding

• they can help to reduce our consumption of treated mains water

• they can help to prevent sewers overflowing into natural water courses, which causes pollution.

Collecting rainwater in water butts is one example of a cheap, small-scale intervention that can help to protect communities against water risks, and engage people with water management.