Why is the UK facing water shortages despite record rainfall?

[PeanutButter]

Climate breakdown, an increasing population and a lack of new infrastructure are factors contributing to water scarcity

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/01/why-uk-facing-water-shortages-despite-record-rainfall-explainer

After months of deluge it seems incomprehensible that the UK could face water shortages in the event of a hot and dry spring and summer.

With an increasing population, a trend of “all or nothing” rain caused by climate breakdown and a lack of investment in infrastructure, we do not keep the water that falls on our island, but let it wash out to sea.

 

Drier countries must look on in disbelief as this rainy isle lets the ever more precious resource flow down rivers and out of the country, leading to hosepipe bans and potentially more dire consequences in the summer. Here are some major reasons:

 

[sexton]

"Councillor Pete Sudbury, Oxfordshire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment, said: “This authority’s message to the water industry has been clear and consistent over many years – the people of Oxfordshire have no wish to see this vast reservoir imposed on them."

https://news.oxfordshire.gov.uk/oxfordshire-county-council-calls-for-giant-reservoir-plan-to-be-scrapped-again/

[shlomo]

This is the Guardian look at the story from the Guardian Australia

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/aug/09/sydneys-drinking-water-quality-under-threat-from-climate-crisis-report-finds

Sydney’s drinking water is unlikely to remain healthy unless the effects of the climate crisis are mitigated, according to a report handed to the New South Wales government.

After a three-year audit, the scathing assessment of the city’s water supply also found seven of the 18 key indicators for the water system’s health were worsening.

 

The audit found climate change posed a risk to the city’s main water catchment providing adequate, good quality water to the greater Sydney area in the future.

Undertaken by Eco Logical Australia and Restore Environmental Consultants for the water minister, Rose Jackson, the audit looked at the health of the catchment between 2019 and 2022.

[MARTINX9]

We have a water system designed for an era when we had 10-20 million fewer people. Just like we have a hospital capacity or energy supply designed for 10-20 million fewer people.

All the will in the world won't allow us to keep up with the growing need given our failure to invest the tens of billions needed to deliver the infrastructure needed to cope.  Because our politicians don't do long term.

[Stewy]

45 minutes ago, PeanutButter said:

Climate breakdown, 

 

😆

What a ridiculous phrase.

Climate change alarmism is just another Doom Porn Nothingburger.

[PeanutButter]

1 minute ago, Stewy said:

😆

What a ridiculous phrase.

Climate change alarmism is just another Doom Porn Nothingburger.

Shhh adults talking

[Si1]

We haven't meaningfully invested in infrastructure for decades. This country is a joke.

[kzb]

Obviously, the answer is not more infrastructure, but demand management.

You'll all have smart water meters, which will incorporate dynamic pricing for water use.

If this is the answer for energy, surely it is the answer to water too ?

[Trampa501]

The point was made many years ago that the water authorities spend a lot of money to supply clean, safe, drinking water, which is then used for washing cars/watering gardens/dish washing etc. Sunk cost?? We should have built a dual system a long time back - ideal for all those new high rise flats. One supply, drinking water that is relatively expensive. The other main supply dirty/recycled/desalinated water but at a far lower cost.

[kzb]

12 minutes ago, Trampa501 said:

The point was made many years ago that the water authorities spend a lot of money to supply clean, safe, drinking water, which is then used for washing cars/watering gardens/dish washing etc. Sunk cost?? We should have built a dual system a long time back - ideal for all those new high rise flats. One supply, drinking water that is relatively expensive. The other main supply dirty/recycled/desalinated water but at a far lower cost.

The cost of the water is the least of it all.  If you look at your bill most of it is for waste water and sewage.

Then there is building and maintaining the system.  You are suggesting essentially doubling the cost of providing the water because there would be two pipework systems instead of just one.

Having said that, surely all houses should be built with rainwater collection off the roofs.  For watering the garden and stuff, it would decrease demand in summer and flatten rainwater runoff to drains in heavy rainfall events.

[Nick Cash]

1977, 1979. Long hot summers were a seeming aberration. Most summers the winter rain had sufficiently filled the reservoirs to cope.

Now, without new reservoirs, winter rain might be sufficient. Today the aquifers are as full as they’ve been for decades after this record breaking wet winter so this summer the chance of a drought should be zero. So a good test of whether infrastructure has been neglected and whether we need the Oxfordshire reservoir.

Anyone facing a drought this year or next in Bolton or Sheffield might ponder the need for reservoirs there. Or maybe we need one on the east side of the Pennines? Places that previously could cope easily on winter rain.

 

 

[DarkHorseWaits-NoMore]

FFS, throw them to the mercy of the free market and privatise the lot of them, it's the only way to ensure that the necessary investment is attracted from the private sector...
... oh erm hang on a minute...🙄 (just another Thatcher/Major flashback 😱)

 

Water, electricity, gas, rail, busses, post office, probation service, council services,
(parking management, green waste bin... etc.)
university educations, social housing, prisons, steel, coal, forestry, road tolls,
dentistry, GPs, care homes, NHS...

UK taxpayer value for money DISASTERS!

 

Edited April 1 by DarkHorseWaits-NoMore
add detail

[Si1]

4 hours ago, kzb said:

Obviously, the answer is not more infrastructure, but demand management.

You'll all have smart water meters, which will incorporate dynamic pricing for water use.

If this is the answer for energy, surely it is the answer to water too ?

 

2 hours ago, kzb said:

The cost of the water is the least of it all.  If you look at your bill most of it is for waste water and sewage.

Then there is building and maintaining the system.  You are suggesting essentially doubling the cost of providing the water because there would be two pipework systems instead of just one.

Having said that, surely all houses should be built with rainwater collection off the roofs.  For watering the garden and stuff, it would decrease demand in summer and flatten rainwater runoff to drains in heavy rainfall events.

I really wanted to disagree with you but to a degree I think you're right here. Infrastructure is still shocking and small strategic improvements like better grids and waste management as well as the odd extra reservoir would help. But micro level distributed improvements like this must surely also play a major part. Not least because theyve never been an option before in many ways .

[kzb]

2 hours ago, Nick Cash said:

1977, 1979. Long hot summers were a seeming aberration. Most summers the winter rain had sufficiently filled the reservoirs to cope.

I think you meant 1976?  Although I dimly recall 1977 summer was pretty good as well, it just gets forgotten after 1976.

However I am not sure with your overall thesis, that droughts were an aberration.  Droughts have always happened, in a high fraction of years.  Summer 1959 was a drought for example.

What they have done is fill in a lot of smaller reservoirs and sold the land for a quick buck.  I can't find how our total reservoir capacity has changed over the decades, but I do wonder if it could have actually fallen.

[onlooker]

26 minutes ago, kzb said:

I think you meant 1976?  Although I dimly recall 1977 summer was pretty good as well, it just gets forgotten after 1976.

However I am not sure with your overall thesis, that droughts were an aberration.  Droughts have always happened, in a high fraction of years.  Summer 1959 was a drought for example.

What they have done is fill in a lot of smaller reservoirs and sold the land for a quick buck.  I can't find how our total reservoir capacity has changed over the decades, but I do wonder if it could have actually fallen.

In southeastern England a lot of the water comes from boreholes in aquifers which realistically will never run dry. The main problem is that in hot dry weather the demand shoots up, and the pumps cannot cope.

[Si1]

19 minutes ago, onlooker said:

In southeastern England a lot of the water comes from boreholes in aquifers which realistically will never run dry. The main problem is that in hot dry weather the demand shoots up, and the pumps cannot cope.

I just don't think they have the capacity given the population in the SE now.

It's not just about pumps coping. Aquifers can dry out if you extract too much. They have a limited natural recharge rate.

[kzb]

3 hours ago, Si1 said:

 

I really wanted to disagree with you but to a degree I think you're right here. Infrastructure is still shocking and small strategic improvements like better grids and waste management as well as the odd extra reservoir would help. But micro level distributed improvements like this must surely also play a major part. Not least because theyve never been an option before in many ways .

Would it help you disagree if I said the first paragraph was tongue in cheek ?

[kzb]

22 minutes ago, onlooker said:

In southeastern England a lot of the water comes from boreholes in aquifers which realistically will never run dry. The main problem is that in hot dry weather the demand shoots up, and the pumps cannot cope.

I believe aquifers can indeed dry up.  Also have to be careful because sucking the water out makes the land level fall.  This is apparently the true cause of "sea level increase" in many parts of the world.

[Trampa501]

6 hours ago, onlooker said:

In southeastern England a lot of the water comes from boreholes in aquifers which realistically will never run dry. The main problem is that in hot dry weather the demand shoots up, and the pumps cannot cope.

The scary thing is that the maximum highs are going up. One thing to have a hot dry spell where the temperature reaches 32C. But when we touch 40C, which we did a couple of summers back, then things get worse on many fronts. Maybe that 40C was an outlier and unlikely to happen again in our lifetime, but the climate people say it's quite likely to re-occur more often. 

[Pmax2020]

Never understand why these topics reference the ‘UK’ and not simply England. 

[onlooker]

7 hours ago, Si1 said:

I just don't think they have the capacity given the population in the SE now.

It's not just about pumps coping. Aquifers can dry out if you extract too much. They have a limited natural recharge rate.

Thus the significance of Winter recharge. However, it can and does affect the quality of life. Over abstraction from the chalk aquifer in Hertfordshire and Hampshire has caused surface streams to dry up much more regularly, and all the dependent wildlife to die.

We do need more reservoirs.

[winkie]

[TheChangeIsCast]

1 hour ago, Pmax2020 said:

Never understand why these topics reference the ‘UK’ and not simply England. 

Yeah, it's mainly an issue for SE England only. Plenty here in North Wales. I bet Scotland, and most of Northern England have plenty too.

For me, the investment in infrastructure just isn't there. There isn't the incentive, nor a tough enough regulator to ensure they invest and improve infrastructure. The private water companies will do anything to avoid improving infrastructure, and when they are forced to fix things, they're more likely to just patch up, rather than improve properly. Example. We live in a large village in NE Wales, about 15 mins from Chester. Ever since we moved here in 2014, the water pressure has been pretty poor, but just got used to it really. New housing developments were blamed. Last year though, the whole village lost it's water supply for two days. Turns out, 5 miles up the road, there's a section of road in a bit of a dip, which always seemed 'wet' even in dry weather, but you just don't think about it much, you just assume it's rainwater run off from adjacent fields etc. Anyway, turns out this was actually a leak that has been present for at least a decade, and on this occasion it's opened up into a much bigger failure, flooded the A road, and cut off the water supply to the village. Of course, they were forced to finally fix it properly because of this. But if it wasn't for the complete failure of the pipe cutting off water, that smaller leak would still be there.

So just fixing the bloody leaks would be a good start. According to the article below, in England and Wales 2,923.8m litres of water a day were lost in 2021-22 (1.06 trillion litres in a year). That's a colossal amount of lost water. That's water that has already cost money to clean etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/19/water-firms-england-wales-litres-leaky-pipes-ofwat

[Stewy]

1 hour ago, Trampa501 said:

The scary thing is that the maximum highs are going up. One thing to have a hot dry spell where the temperature reaches 32C. But when we touch 40C, 

That 40C was powered by jet exhausts overwhelming airport thermometers just metres away, and Urban Heat Islands. 

[onlooker]

23 minutes ago, TheChangeIsCast said:

The private water companies will do anything to avoid improving infrastructure, and when they are forced to fix things, they're more likely to just patch up, rather than improve properly. Example. We live in a large village in NE Wales, about 15 mins from Chester.

 

I thought Welsh water was not owned by a private company, but is a cooperative owned by the Welsh people?