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The Met Office is sharing its water industry expertise at the Water Industry Innovation Conference.

Extremes of weather are already having an impact on the UK water industry; for example, water demand can vary significantly in the summer depending on the weather. This can have a major impact on the long-term strategic planning and investment decisions of water companies. The Met Office's suite of water supply models is aimed at helping companies proactively manage their water resource strategies and operations.

These models, which provide detailed data for assessing factors such as weather dependent demand, leakage, and seasonal night use, will be showcased at the  Water Industry Innovation Conference on 28 January 2015.

The Met Office is the headline sponsor at this year's event, which will look at the changes to the water sector brought about by non-household retail competition as well as exploring the role of the supply chain in meeting long-term challenges like climate change and population growth.

The Met Office works closely with water companies, offering a tailored service to calibrate the summer demand model for individual company's regions or individual resource zones.

Steven Wade, who is leading the development of a new Scientific Consultancy team within the Met Office, will be addressing delegates at the event with a talk entitled 'Why be reactive when you can be proactive? Harnessing weather and climate intelligence to reduce costs, meet regulatory targets and drive customer satisfaction'.

This year's conference is being held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole and you can find more information online.