You turn on your tap for water, but nothing comes out. Instead you must queue in the streets to receive water from a standpipe and carry it in a bucket back to your home.
Britain has been here before; in the summer of 1976 a prolonged drought that started the summer before led to the taps running dry.
Dwindling water levels at Woodhead Reservoir in Derbyshire this week (Photo: Oli Scarff/Getty)With the UK currently experiencing its driest spring in over a century, early alarm bells are starting to sound over the country’s water supply.
Parts of the country, including London, Hampshire, Manchester and Yorkshire went over three weeks without a single drop of rain.
“The last two years were some of the wettest on record for England but drier conditions at the start of this year mean a drought is a possibility and we need to be prepared,” Richard Thompson, the Environment Agency’s Deputy Director of Water said.
Experts are quick to warn Britain is still a long way from crisis point, while still raising concerns about the position we currently find ourselves in.
Bridport, Dorset in the summer of 1976 (Photo: Frank Barratt/Keystone/Getty)The latest update from the Environment Agency, issued two weeks ago, stated that reservoir storage across England was at 84 per cent of total capacity, compared to 90 per cent at the same period in 2022.
What will happen if it doesn’t rain soon?
While showery weather has returned to parts of the UK, experts warn it will take a prolonged period of rain to properly replenish the country’s water reserves.
The next stage is usually hosepipe bans. While this hasn’t happened yet, scientists and water companies have warned they could be on the horizon.
A next step would be restricting the water use of some businesses, such as public gardens and swimming pools, according to Alastair Chisholm, Director of Policy at the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.
When is a drought officially declared?
There are four stages of drought in the UK that demand certain responses from the authorities: prolonged dry weather, drought, severe drought and recovering from drought.
It is up to the Environment Agency to decide whether an area is in drought and what level applies to them.
There is no single definition, but instead the regulator monitors a number of factors, including rainfall, river flows, groundwater levels and reservoir storage.
“At the same time, what happens in parallel is the water companies are allowed to take water from places that they wouldn’t usually be allowed to take water from,” he added. This includes environmentally sensitive rivers, such as chalk streams.
This is obviously devastating for nature and for Britain’s struggling rivers, which suffer terribly during periods of drought. A report published last year by the Wildlife Trusts found drought is now considered the biggest risk to the UK’s nature reserves.
A heatwave this summer could result in isolated cases of areas temporarily running out of water, as happened in Oxfordshire in 2022. Chisholm explained this usually happens due to drinking water treatment works struggling to cope with a sudden surge in demand.
“We would say in the UK we are designed to outlast a one-year drought. So if you have a two-year drought, then then you end up in the kind of emergency situations,” Dr Dobson said,
This is what happened in the summer of 1976, which came at the end of the driest 16-month period in the UK in more than 250 years.
But one particularly rainy month would be enough for the UK to avoid this fate, according to Dr Dobson. This happened in 2022 when the hot, dry summer was followed by above-average rainfall over the Autumn.
Low water levels in Colliford Lake in Cornwall in 2022 (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)Is the UK’s infrastructure ready for climate change?
The Environment Agency currently predicts the UK will need an additional five billion litres of water above current supply levels by 2050, which means water companies will be required to make major investments in their infrastructure.
The Environment Secretary Steve Reed has warned that the UK will not have enough drinking water to meet demand by the 2030s if our infrastructure is not improved.
Another major problem is leakage. Almost a fifth of England’s water supply is lost by water companies before it reaches customers, more than enough to supply Greater London.
A spokesperson for Water UK, which represents water companies, said firms are starting work on nine reservoirs and were “setting new records for repairing leaks”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs blamed “crumbling” water infrastructure on “years of underinvestment”.
They added: “We are monitoring water levels and expect water companies to cut leaks and take action to protect supplies.”
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