Londoners could see their water rationed imminently because of overabstraction from aquifers, overuse and wastage of water through leaking pipes.
James Wallace, chief executive of River Action, which campaigns to protect Britain’s rivers, has warned that the chalk streams that provided the capital with drinking water were at risk of drying up and the situation needed to be treated as an emergency.
London’s main water supplier, Thames Water, said there needed to be a national change in how water is used.
At an environment committee meeting about the resilience of London’s water supply, Wallace said many streams in the Chilterns, which are the source of the water supply to north London, were permanently dry and some were only at 25 per cent of normal flow rates.
“This means that we are going to be seeing rationing of water in north London imminently. We’re not talking 20, 30, 40 years,” he added.
“When are we going to treat this like it’s an emergency?
“I appreciate it takes time to dig a reservoir but some of these things, like changing our abstraction requirements, reducing consumer demand, fixing leaky pipes, this is a national crisis and we need to address it that way.”
What is water rationing and how would it work?
According to ClimateAdapt, water rationing is the process of limiting households’ everyday water use when it is in scarce supply.
"Water restrictions and, to a lesser extent, water rationing, is frequently used in situations of temporary water scarcity, eg, during droughts. They allow local or even regional and national administrations to cope with water crises by reducing consumption. Whenever those temporary low-cost measures are not complemented by any behavioural change towards more conscious water use by people, water demand and use are expected to rise again and return to previous levels once restrictions are removed."
This means that normal supplies of water products (or any products made using water) may be limited to the public so that essential services – such as the fire service – are able to access sufficient water.
What are the drought levels?
The Environment Agency uses a four-stage scale to indicate drought status. The stages are:
- A yellow stage means prolonged dry weather – this means there could be risk to wildlife and plants.
- An amber stage means drought – dry weather will be putting public and private water supply under stress, with crop failures and localised wildfires expected.
- A red stage means severe drought – the environmental damage is widespread with failures of public and private water supplies.
- A final amber stage would be declared depending on the severity of the initial warning given, with this final stage signalling recovering drought.
