With the recent publication of the Water White Paper emphasising the importance of societies' involvement in securing supplies, CIWEM reaffirms the importance of the proper valuation of water.
The scale of the potential impact of climate change for the UK has already been felt with droughts in June 2010 leading to hose pipe bans affecting 6.5 million customers in the North-East of England. Birmingham receives all its potable water needs from the Elan Valley reservoirs. A recent study published in the Water and Environment Journal demonstrated that the number of very dry years is expected to increase by around 7%.
Climate change will increase frequency of droughts, lower reservoir levels and reduce the reliability of public water supply, unless supplies are increased and/or demand reduced. Increasing the Elan reservoir storage capacity would counteract the anticipated increased hydrological variability, but would be costly, involve long lead times and potentially be constrained by the limits of the aqueduct that transports the water supplies from the Elan valley to Birmingham.
The twin track approach of increasing supply and reducing demand appears to be the best way to maintain supplies while improving resilience because of the anticipated increased demands and limited capacity of current infrastructure. Read the full report here.
Source: Eco Friend News.com.
