I INTRODUCTION

1.1 Available Fresh Water.Only about 2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh water, and most of it is stored in glaciers, or ice caps, or deep in rock-strata (aquifers). So only a small part of it is easily accessible. Water is continually flowing: falling as rainfall, running off as rivers, soaking into the ground, evaporating from lakes and wet surfaces, or transpiring from vegetation and, for the purposes of measurement for human use, is referred to as the Renewable Fresh Water Resource (RFWR). At present humans use some 10% of RFWR, but it can be very variable depending on time of year, and on geographical location; also humans must share it with all the other species on earth. Therefore ten per cent of the total available in a particular place may be a prudent level for that country to rely on.

1.2 RFWR: 100% use and more. Increasing numbers of countries are withdrawing up to and even exceeding 100% of their RFWR. They do this in two ways. First, there is plenty of saline water in the oceans, and several countries now make use of desalination plant - often using oil as the power source - to create a new source of fresh water. (See 2.3.1, desalination) Other major withdrawals are from underground or fossil water, which may have taken thousands of years to build up in the aquifers (rock strata which hold water). Libya, for example, pumps seven times more water annually for irrigation than it receives in rainfall.

1.3 Estimating RFWR. Of the 110,000 cubic kilometres of water which falls on land areas each year as precipitation, around 40,000 cubic kilometres flows to the sea as runoff after vegetation has made use of the larger part of it. The runoff (RFWR) can be estimated for each country. And each country’s actual withdrawals of water for all uses can be measured, or at least estimated. The ratio between withdrawals and RFWR is critical: the higher the ratio, the greater the stress being placed on freshwater resources: 5 – 20% represents mild stress, 20 – 40% moderate stress and above 40% severe stress. The Living Planet Report (LPR) 2006, published by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) shows the ratio for each country.

1.4 Water use and population. Water use worldwide doubled between 1960 and 2000, during which time world population doubled. It means that the average per person water use has remained about the same. This fact hides huge disparities between countries; Turkmenistan uses vast amounts per head for irrigation of export crops, whereas most African countries use tiny amounts. The UK use per person is surprisingly modest, but at 6% of total RFWR, this country is moving towards the water stress zone. The USA is judged to be using 16% of its RFWR, which is more worrying. It did reduce its water withdrawals by 9% between 1980 and 1995 even as its population grew by 16% during the same period – a decline of 20% per person. Most of the decline was in the 1980s and was due to increasing costs and therefore much more efficient ways of using water, especially in agriculture. (See 2. 4.1) As its population continues to grow it is by no means certain that further declines in water-use can be attained without considerable life-style changes. Developing countries with fast-growing populations, and with industrial and agricultural needs expanding, could ‘bump up against the limits of supply’ according to Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project, USA. India, with its still-rapid increase in human numbers, already uses some 34% of its RFWR; Pakistan uses 76%. (LPR 2006)

2 THE GLOBAL ISSUES

2.1 Water conflicts

In February 2006 the then UK Defence Secretary, John Reid, warned of the collision course between burgeoning world population growth and scarce fresh water supplies. The Independent (28 February 2006) reviewed a number of water-conflict hotspots:

Dams were planned on the Euphrates by Turkey, which nearly precipitated war with Syria in 1998. Future water shortages will exacerbate tension between these two countries.

The river Nile is vital to the welfare of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt, all countries with expanding populations. Ethiopia wants to withdraw more of the Blue Nile, while Uganda and Sudan withdraw supplies from the White Nile. As their needs increase, Egypt downstream faces shortages.

Africa. In southern Africa, the Okavango Delta in Botswana is fertile as long as the river flows through from Angola and Namibia. But Namibia wants a 250-mile pipeline from the river to supply its capital, Windhoek. Tensions have flared recently between the three territories.

In Kenya (Oxfam report, The Independent, Feb. 2006) tribal conflicts left dozens dead and with the death toll growing daily. The area had been hit by drought, leaving very little water for domestic animals as water holes dried up. Cattle herders drove their animals onto other tribes’ land and stole their neighbours’ cattle to replace their dead ones. They felt they had to fight in order to survive. In July 2005, 60 people were killed in one village even before the drought intensified. Four million people face food shortages in northern Kenya, and inevitably this involves violent cross-border raids with neighbouring regions of Uganda, Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia.

India and China. In 2000 these two countries were in dispute over the governance of the Brahmaputra, when conditions in Tibet resulted in floods in N E India and in Bangladesh. There are also Chinese proposals to divert the headwaters of the river.

Bangladesh: High levels of flooding from melting Himalayan glaciers are resulting in some 6,000 people per day fleeing across the border into India. India has responded by building a huge border fence to check the migration.

2.2 Overuse of groundwater reserves

2.2.1 China. Around 70% of all China’s drinking water, and 40% of water for irrigated food production, is groundwater. ( Daily Telegraph, 29 December 2005) Groundwater is being overused with levels falling as much as 18 inches per year. Subsidence and erosion can be caused and there is the possibility of such supplies being used up in a few decades. In financial circles it is thought that water shortages could be what derails China’s spectacular economic growth. (An eight-fold expansion in the last 25 years, with 320 million more people.) Forty per cent of Chinese people live on an amount of water below the international stress levels. In addition, the discharge of industrial and human waste into rivers seeps into groundwater; it is thought that some 300 million people regularly drink contaminated water from boreholes, resulting in birth defects and cancer.

In one village in northern China, the well yields one big bucket of water per day – enough for a family for drinking and cooking for two weeks. Here, the desert is encroaching, rivers and lakes and groundwater have dried up. Too many wells were drilled and the water table fell disastrously. Now more than a million people are being moved out and resettled elsewhere. In other parts of the region efforts to halt the process of desertification are paying off, although this is requiring ever-higher investment by the Government – some £150 million per year. ( The Times, 5.9.06).

Around Beijing groundwater level is falling by 2 metres each year. (Thirsty Planet, p. 50) and in Tianjin, it is dropping by 4.4 metres per year. (David Pimentel, Worldwatch, Sept. 04) The government tries to fill the huge water shortages by boring wells ever deeper in the ground and other methods. The shortages in the three great river basins of the Haike, Yellow, and the Huaike are estimated to be 15 billion cubic metres; and the projected shortfall for 2010 could be 28 billion cubic metres.

2.2.2 Western Australia. The Water Corporation supplies 1.9 million people (almost the entire population of this vast state). It estimates ( The Western Australian, 11.3.06) that it needs 318 million cubic metres per year, but the average yield from surface water and groundwater is 256 million cubic metres. So groundwater has to be brought in from further afield and sprinklers restricted to two days per week. But by 2050 the corporation estimates that demand will have risen to 455 million cubic metres per year. Possible plans for water from another distant aquifer are being discussed; if these are rejected, then desalination plants will have to be built – indeed one came on-stream in early 2006. Other possibilities are recharging the aquifers with treated wastewater, and cutting consumption through higher charges.

Elsewhere in Australia, the Great Artesian Basin of the eastern interior has seen its flow reduced by a quarter in the past century. Eighty five million dollars (Aus) have been earmarked to establish a minimum pressure, and cap and pipe all boreholes to reduce loss and evaporation. ( The Times, Jan. 2007) In October 2006 massive cuts in extraction allocations were enforced. A huge groundwater reservoir found near Sydney was declared undrinkable because of contamination.

2.2.3 The United States: Historically the prairie lands flourished agriculturally using water from a vast aquifer. Between 1940 and 1980 the water level in the aquifer dropped 10 feet on average (100 feet in some parts). In following years the pumping costs rose to the extent that irrigated areas declined from 2.4 million to 1.6 million hectares. In Arizona some aquifers are being over pumped ten times faster than replacement rates. (D. Pimentel, as above.)

2.2.4 India: Between 1974 and 2002 rural access to safe drinking water rose from 18% to 95% ( World Development Report, 2004). There was huge investment by the state into technological solutions – mostly the provision of boreholes and the use of petrol-driven pumps. This meant that every small farmer could access water from deep aquifers. The snag was that the bores had to go deeper and deeper as the aquifer was drained far faster than it could recharge from rainfall. (But – see 2.3.2, India) Yet the charity Worldwide Concern still asks donors to provide pumps; they say, ‘A water pump gives a village all the safe, fresh water it needs.’

2.3 Technical, traditional and evolving strategies for collection/distribution of Renewable Fresh Water Resources.

For several decades the big response to water shortages has been to build more and bigger dams, to bore deeper wells, and construct longer pipelines. But still the rivers die and the water tables fall.

Different countries have very different problems in capturing water for human use. A country like the UK needs very little for agriculture because it can rely almost wholly on rainfall. With a very dense population the distribution of clean piped water to every household is relatively simple and cheap. But in countries with huge areas with sparse settlements, the cost of piped water is very great. Also, while a country may have, in theory, a very great volume of available water - perhaps a major river fed from melting water from high mountain glaciers - if the rest of the land is arid, then the cost of infrastructure to distribute some of the flow to far-flung villages is huge. Such regions may rely very heavily on bores into the aquifers. (See 2.2)

2. 3. 1 Technical measures

Dams. At the Third World Water Forum, held in Kyoto, Japan, in March 2003, a battle was waged over the future of water supplies ( New Scientist, 22 March 2003). The President (the Egyptian water minister) called for a doubling of the number of large dams around the world, while public health and water experts and environmentalists condemned such a goal. The call was for massive increases in spending on large construction projects such as dams, barrages, canals and sewer systems; part, it is thought, of the move towards privatisation of the world water resources (see 2. 6). UN officials opposed the strategy, arguing that it would never serve the billions of poor in rural communities. In addition there are notable problems with siltation, evaporation, and destruction of fisheries downstream.

The World Bank, once the largest funder of dams, has not given any loans for large new dams since the mid-1990s because of their massive environmental impact. It refused funding for both the Narmada River project in India and the Three Gorges Dam in China. The World Commission on Dams condemned them as economically inefficient.

Cloud seeding. Injecting silver iodide into high cloud formations is attempted in China, to promote rainfall in drought-stricken areas.

Desalination of sea water. This is the option favoured by wealthy countries, and especially those with good oil reserves. Thus it is the major source of fresh water in Saudi Arabia. It is also becoming a strategic option in Australia.

Globally, 30 million cubic metres of desalinated water is produced per day, forming 3% of all tap water. Most of this is still in the Gulf States, and most is produced by the evaporation method – the energy-hungry way. China plans to build large desalination plants; the first, at Tianjin, should produce 100 thousand cubic metres per day, which sounds good, but the water deficit in this area is 100 million cubic metres per day. ( New Scientist, July 04).

In Western Australia the water company claims that its new desalination plant only uses one third of the energy that a competing proposal (a pipeline from the Kimberley) would require per unit of delivered water. It also claims that desalination is by far the cheaper option – 1.20 Aus. Dollars per cubic metre. However, a private consortium claims ( The Western Australian, 30.10.04 ) that the saline water in the Wellington Dam could be desalinated (instead of discarded) in a plant at the foot of the dam using minimal power to push the water through the filters, bringing the cost down to 0.6 Aus. dollars.

In Europe Malta has two-thirds of its drinking water from desalination – but through the reverse osmosis method (RO). The cost for this method is reducing significantly. Spain is planning for twenty RO plants. Israel produces the cheapest desalinated water – 50 US cents per cubic metre, compared with 30 US cents per cubic metre to pump fresh water from the Sea of Galilee to Tel Aviv. The proposed Thames Water (UK) plant at Sandwich, Kent should give – when required – 150,000 cubic metres per day, enough for one million people.

The drawbacks of desalination are considerable: the dumping of concentrated brine and associated process chemicals back in the sea, and the usage of 6 kilowatt hours of electricity for every cubic metre of water produced adding to the CO2 burden in the atmosphere, unless nuclear energy or hydro-power is used.

2. 3. 2 Traditional and evolving strategies for securing RFWR.

As the negative effects of vast dam-projects and millions of individual bore-holes are publicised, enthusiasm for such projects has waned. The focus has become increasingly community-based, with rainwater collection in tanks next to house-roofs, furrows to trap rainwater, and small dams for groundwater recharge where bore-holes are depleting the aquifer. Replanting hillsides with tree-cover is also seen as important to absorb heavy rainfall, and help it soak into the ground rather than running off as a flash-flood. This is the new mantra of landscape management to secure water supplies.

India. As awareness grew of the crisis of ever-deeper bores to reach groundwater supplies, a new strategy evolved. Rather than spend money on further technical fixes, some states have focused on water management, organising soak pits and check-dams to maximise rain seepage into the ground. In one village 32 such small dams resulted in a water-table rise of 400 feet. Other measures include the planting of trees – 20,000 in 120 villages in Tamil Nadu – making village ponds, and providing homes with rainwater tanks. With this kind of voluntary village-based action the cost of water has gone down by 65 %, thus releasing more investment money for new schemes.

Britain. Everyone is now encouraged to collect rainwater from rooftops into butts for garden watering. And farmers are finding traditional dew ponds on hill-tops – filled with straw and stones – an excellent low-tech way to create pools of water for animals.

Chile. The northern coastal region may see no rainfall for years. But a new technique of suspending plastic mesh on poles can condense water out of the fogs prevalent here.

2.3.3 Moving water round the world

Oil is traded around the world, moving to where it is needed most, and in commercial circles water is increasingly seen as a similar commodity. To a small degree this is practical: the few litres of safe drinking water required per person per day can be traded internationally in plastic bottles, although the transportation fuel impacts should be recognised; or it can be provided expensively through desalination of sea-water. But the water required for domestic purposes, industry and agriculture has to be low-cost, especially in developing countries.

Virtual water. In some dry regions like the Middle East, with high revenues from oil, importation of the products requiring high water use – food, and industrial goods – makes economic sense. The weight of the goods is far less than the weight of water required for their production. This is referred to as the ‘virtual water trade.’

Water-hungry products are also imported to countries with little or no water-shortage: cotton T-shirts, for instance, are now perhaps the main item of apparel for young British people, who may give no thought to the fact that cotton is a hugely thirsty plant, requiring, for example, 25 cubic metres of water for each 250 grams of cotton – the average T-shirt. The over-abstraction of water from rivers flowing to the Aral Sea, for the purpose of irrigating millions of acres of cotton, is the root cause of the ecologically disastrous shrinkage of that sea, and its conversion to desert. Yet Worldwide Concern asks people to buy its T-shirts (for recipients in the developing world) as presents that ‘spread a lot more love’ at Christmas.

Transported water. Increasingly, it is thought economically viable to transport water very long distances from areas of abundance to areas of scarcity. International trade agreements under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and NAFTA now protect companies' 'rights' to carry on such trade. It may involve diversion of water through pipelines from one country to another, e.g. Canada to USA, or carriage in supertankers. Some countries are developing technology whereby large quantities of fresh water could be towed across the oceans in huge sealed bags. A recent contract agrees the sale of glacier water (18 billion gallons per year) from Alaska, to China, where it will be bottled by cheap labour. The Canadian company involved urges investors 'to harvest the accelerating opportunity as traditional sources of water around the world become progressively depleted and degraded' (Colin Hines: Localisation, A Global Manifesto.). Indeed governments around the world are encouraging such commodification and transport of water as the water crisis intensifies.

2. 4 Making efficient use of water

2.4.1 Better techniques in agriculture.

2.4.2 Water efficiency in the home. Appliances such as dish-washers and washing machines with water-efficiency built in, and dual-flush toilets, are becoming standard in some countries, especially those that face water shortages and high water prices. The trend towards taking showers rather than baths has cut bathing water use, although the introduction of power showers is helping to reverse the savings made. Metering of water is seen as an essential tool in making consumers aware of their water use, and encouraging them to collect rainwater for garden-watering, and for washing paths and vehicles. In times of drought, bans may be imposed on the use of hosepipes in gardens or the filling of private swimming pools; garden sprinklers may be subject to strict timing rationing, as in Western Australia. (For more measures see section 3 – UK)

2.4.3 Water efficiency in industry. As the cost of delivered water and waste water treatment increases, commercial plant have an incentive to reduce their use of water. The recycling of process water has reduced water used by industry by 35% in USA. Thirty per cent of available water in a developed country may be for cooling purposes in electricity generating stations. Some of this condenses and is returned to the waterway, but much evaporates to the atmosphere. In the UK big reductions have been made in abstractions for cooling generators, while the shift away from heavy industry has meant considerable shrinkage in industrial water-use.

2.5 Lack of safe drinking water and sanitation

Over one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. Some 2.6 billion have no access to a lavatory. Millions of people (mostly women and girls) spend many hours each day walking to collect water. Between three and four million people die each year from waterborne diseases. Such statistics are the human face of the global water situation. One of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals is to halve the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation by 2015. £7.5 billion is needed on top of the similar sum already allocated by donor countries for water and sanitation, according to Water Aid (WA). This, WA claims, is a mere 0.002% of the world’s yearly military spending. But is it a problem that can be solved simply by throwing money and technology at it?

In Africa there are huge differences between those countries that have a great abundance of freshwater per inhabitant (Congo, Gabon, Liberia, Central African Republic and Guinea), and those which have vanishingly small amounts: Morocco (using 43% of available fresh water), Tunisia (57%), Algeria (52%), Sudan (58%), Libya (711%), and Egypt (117%). ( LPR, 2006). Clearly, in the first category it can be a case of ‘water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink.’ In Gabon, Liberia and Congo, for example, consumption is only 0.1% of the renewable fresh water resource. (compare UK - 6% of RFWR.), so it is right that all help should be given to provide safe water distribution or collection systems in such countries. In the second category, the question must be asked: if households aspire to running water and a flush-toilet, as opposed to pit or compost latrines, and population continues to increase, where will all the required water come from?

Some countries with little or no water resources, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, solve the problem by using an abundant resource – oil – to provide an expensive desalinated water supply, (see 2.3. 1), or virtual water (2.3.3), but such ‘solutions’ can in no way be regarded as ecologically sustainable.

Thus, for some countries the problem is lack of financial and technical resources to distribute safe water, whereas in many others the population, even with modest needs, may be way out of balance with water resources. Calling altruistically for safe water for every person on earth is unrealistic for regions where there is simply a shortage of available, renewable, sustainable regular supplies. Many modern techniques can be brought to bear to harvest, conserve, and distribute safe water, but ultimately the solution is for the number of consumers to be in balance with the RFWR.

2.6 Public versus private provision of safe water

Many aid and development agencies regard water as a basic human right. The Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics (USA) in June 2005, claimed that ‘corporate grabbers are trying to monopolise the precious commodity and sell it to the highest bidder’.

Since November 2002 there has been a UN obligation on all governments to extend access to safe water as a social right to all citizens. This is a noble goal and a vital precursor to improving health; but it is a right that cannot be exercised if water simply isn’t there, or only present in uselessly small amounts, or where it is vital for ecosystem survival.

Providing clean, piped water to the scattered population of a region in Africa or India, for example, can be an expensive business if there is no local water body, or groundwater is very deep. Some countries have found that the only practical way to achieve such an aim is to allow private companies to put in capital for the pipelines and pumping stations and charge the consumers – even per bucket at a village tap. Such systems have provoked a backlash of disgust as poor people may be forced to choose between drinking and being clean – they can’t afford both. But the government of South Africa decided to guarantee its people the right of access to sufficient water and saw the private sector as a vital partner. After 10 years of a major programme, safe drinking water has been brought to some 10 million people – to communal taps no more than 200 metres from their homes - and the country is well on the way to achieving the Millennium Development Goal for water, way ahead of the target year 2015. In this country five million more people will have safe water by 2008 and sanitation should be extended to 16 million people. Households are allowed 6,000 litres per month free of charge. This has been a joint project between government, private firms, and NGOs.

South Africa’s success so far has been from private investment and know-how, with government regulation, and NGO participation in all local plans for water projects. It is to be hoped that the NGO representatives include environmentalists who will press for ecosystem protection as a vital part of water projects, and for ecological methods of returning human wastes to local land to retain fertility, rather than the adoption of the massive infrastructure of mains sewage systems.

In some countries negative reports emerge of water too expensive at the village tap for people to buy, or water so bad in quality that people become ill. On the other hand where private firms are finding it almost impossible to recoup in water-charges the cost of building the infrastructure, they are reluctant to invest in any further schemes.

2.7 Unintended consequences of providing water

UK research ( Nature, February 2006) showed that in some Ethiopean rural villages (1996 – 2000) the provision of piped water meant that women no longer had to spend up to six hours per day fetching water from a distant source in heavy clay pots. Their very great expenditure of energy was avoided, which would appear a great benefit. Another benefit was that the safe water halved the death rate among children. But the disbenefit was that the women’s fertility was boosted; they became pregnant more quickly. More births, closer together, meant overall childhood nutrition worsened. And a baby boom, on top of already high population growth, is not going to help Ethiopia’s people emerge from the cycle of drought, famine and poverty. This is a prime example of how vital it is to have – in parallel with technical aid projects – reproductive health services which allow women to control their fertility. Then, everyone benefits.

In Australia, nearly six million hectares of land is affected by salinity as a result of years of irrigation under hot conditions, and poor management of drylands. It occurs where native ecosystems have been replaced with European agricultural models; the result is that the top layers of soil are unfit for agricultural plants, then the salinity encroaches into rivers killing aquatic species and making the water unfit for drinking. In the Western Australia wheatbelt hundreds of kilometres of drains are being put in by farmers at their own expense to avoid catastrophe on their land. Australia uses 5% of its RFWR (LPR 2006) so is just entering the water-stress category. Unless its citizens are prepared to greatly reduce their very high per person consumption, then Australia should be concerned to avoid further population increase. ( Civil Engineers Australia, Sept. 2001)

2.8 Climate change and water

2.8.1 Glaciers melting. Half the world’s population depends on rivers starting from mountain glaciers, which are being affected by the general warming of the climate. For example, the Himalayan glaciers are melting and retreating with the higher temperatures associated with global climate change. These glaciers supply the seven great rivers of Asia: the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China, the Ganges in India, the Indus in Pakistan, the Brahmaputra in Bangladesh and the Irrawaddy in Burma. The United Nations Development Programme warns in a recent report that China’s glaciers may all melt by 2100. WWF warns that some glaciers might disappear by 2050. They act as a huge reservoir releasing melt-water in summer, keeping levels up in the great rivers, prior to the monsoon rains. As the snow cover becomes less, and the glaciers shrink, the summer run-off will diminish, leading to water-shortages. Already, in 2006–7, the flow of water through many villages is noticeably less. It is thought that the July–September flow could be reduced by two-thirds each year.

2.8.2 Avoiding carbon emissions increases water demand. USA has mandated a one third increase in bio-ethanol production in 2006–07 as part of the shift away from climate changing fossil fuels. While the 2005 US grain crop was the second largest on record, it will need to grow large quantities of extra grain to supply the ethanol refineries. This is at a time when water shortages in China may force it to import large quantities of grain – some 12 million tonnes of wheat in 2007, 17% of globally traded wheat. And the persistent drought in eastern Australia means that its usual role as a grain exporter could collapse.

3 WATER IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

3.1 UK total water use. The WWF ( LPR 2006) puts the UK water withdrawals to availability ratio at 6%. It considers 5% - 20% represents mild stress, so the UK cannot be complacent about the upward trend of total water withdrawals. The total amount used in UK (on a per person basis, but including domestic, industrial and agricultural withdrawals) is modest – about 550 litres per day - compared to the majority of countries in the world, because agriculture can be carried on mostly without irrigation. The Environment Agency figures show that, while electricity generation and industry have both significantly reduced their water use, the public sector demand continues to increase.

3.2 Public/domestic water. The average direct use by each person in Britain is 154 litres (Environment Agency, 2007) with household water use rising by 70% over the last 30 years because of the use of water-hungry appliances. Only 28% of British households have water meters, while the target is 75 % by 2026. The UK Government attaches importance to the goal of lowering water use per household because of increasing water constraints: rivers reduced to a trickle for several months, reservoir levels dropping, water tables (for groundwater supplies) continuing to drop. The large increases in the UK population experienced during the last five years makes it even more important to try to push per person consumption downwards.

It is the south east of Britain which is so short of water and it would involve huge investment to deliver water from the north or west regions, or from Wales to this region. If the SE is declared ‘water-scarce’ then water-meters may become mandatory. However, recognising that few people actually think about their water meters until the six-monthly bill arrives, water engineers are developing a ‘smart meter’, which will show how much water each function uses – for instance a power-shower, or a dishwasher.

70% of public water supply in London and the south east is from ground water and the levels in the aquifers are at historic lows. So, in this region, from the early part of 2006, a ban was imposed by eight water companies on the use of sprinklers and on hosepipes for watering gardens or washing vehicles. There was also a ban on filling swimming pools. Opposition to this approach comes from consumers who point to the huge losses of water from leaks in the water distribution pipes. It is estimated that a third of the UK’s water supply leaks away through faults in old pipes. The water companies, however, claim that they are spending very large sums on replacement works, and carrying out the work as rapidly as is feasible.

Yet these same water companies still see big engineering projects as the answer according to the Daily Telegraph (Sept. 2006). Thames Water loses 890 million litres of water per day through leakages, but has plans to build a large new reservoir in Oxfordshire. This would be the country’s largest fully embanked reservoir, bringing 346 million litres a day to London, but will be strongly opposed on environmental grounds.

3.3 Saving water at home. Environmental groups and water agencies suggest a range of measures for reducing demand: water-efficient dish-washers and washing machines, low-flush toilets (WC flushing accounts for 31% of domestic water use), no-water gardening, using water collection butts in the garden, showers instead of baths, not running taps while cleaning teeth, etc. Some would go further: in 2006 the Mayor of London advocated not flushing the toilet except for solid waste (as practised in his own household), and for many years the Women’s Environmental Network have suggested that far less clothes-washing need be done. Clearly, there is a limit to how far consumers can go with such savings before creating health hazards. Only OPT suggests that part of the answer lies in there being gradually fewer of us needing to share the available water.

3.4 Biodiversity. Other projects to cope with shortages involve further demands on ecosystems. Southern Water was granted a permit in January 2006 to take water from the Medway to refill a reservoir, which was only 36% full – the lowest level on record for the winter season. (This reservoir supplies Kent and Essex, both areas that are seeing a great expansion of housing.) Previously the river was not allowed to be abstracted below a flow of 270 million litres per day, but now this permit can operate as long as the river stays above a mere 99 million litres per day. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) highlights in a 2006 leaflet the damage to the landscape and wildlife as rivers are lowered and dry out: particularly likely to be affected are toads, crested newts, water crowfoot, hoverflies, moorhens and water voles.

3.5 Expansion of housing. Against this background, it is astonishing that the UK government has given the go-ahead – indeed has promoted – a massive expansion of housing. Half a million new homes are planned in the south east alone. The CPRE again:

‘The Environment Agency’s own figures show that for this number of houses to be sustainable would require all the new houses to be 25% more water-efficient and all existing houses to be 8% more water-efficient. Yet 200,000 new houses have already been built in the region without any water conservation measures. Unless we can make the politicians and planners listen and re-think, we are heading for disaster here in Eastern England.’

The CPRE is now beginning to question, along with OPT, the growth in the UK population that has made such a massive house-building programme necessary. In a letter to The Guardian,on August 9 2006, its chief executive says:

‘Any attempt to define an optimum level for immigration… needs to look beyond issues of the economy and social stability, important as these are, to take into account the environment…. The UK is one of the most densely populaied and built up countries in the EU and some English regions are already close to reaching the limits of their capacity to take further development without serious damage to the environment or quality of life.’

Our total usage of water just puts us inside the WWF category of mild stress, and we should regard this as a wake-up call. Along with every measure for reducing per person use of water, through metering, efficient appliances, rainwater harvesting, and reduction of pipe leakages, a halt should be called to any further expansion of the UK population.

4 SUMMARY

OPT's view is that water use reduction and conservation measures would be far more effective if implemented in parallel with gradual population reduction.

There are hundreds of ways, perhaps thousands, in which people could reduce the waste of water, manage its use more carefully, recycle it and make optimum use of it, but all these measures are subject to the law of diminishing returns. Ultimately there is only a limited amount of freshwater for us to use. The warning signs are there in many parts of the world. Some societies in the past have failed to live within ecological constraints and have collapsed because of this: the fate of the Easter Island community is an example.

One ultimate constraint is now being tested: the ability of the entire planet to cope with the demands being placed upon its water resources, as demand increases – driven by ever-greater numbers of human consumers, rising per-person demand as living standards improve in developing countries, and rising global temperatures. Given international will, it may be possible to postpone the worst effects of water scarcity for a while through the development of new technologies and consumer attitudes. If this small breathing space is used wisely to face up to the imperative of a smaller population, and all necessary, humane and gradual steps to this end are taken, the crises that are being forecast may be averted.

Bibliography