2012 UK Drought

[Aaron]

Spain has always been very dry. Parts of Spain are at high risk of desertification.

[HighPressure]

The desalination plant at Beckon was being talked about when I was with TW, with a max output of 150ml/d @6% of max London demand it is not really going to have much of a impact. They are very expensive to run, which why it is only designed as a contingency. Thames ideally could do with @4 more at the cost of say a billion quid plus running costs to actually give London a robust water supply system. Engineering wise it's possible but commercially unlikely.

The canal idea has been talked about for years, but there are so many technical problems to overcome plus the huge expense, it's not something that I think will ever be done. I am not sure if many people have actually given the idea of hundreds of millions of litres of water traveling down a narrow canal a lot of thought?

Leakage in London is always going to be problem but as I said in another post TW were forced to spend quite a bit of money reducing it about 10yrs ago and did make some ground. One main area of water loss is the raw water storage reservoir system which is not calculated in leakage figures because it never reaches the works. I did this calc back in 2004 and could not account for where about 20,000 million litres of abstracted water each year, that the entire contents of one of the big reservoirs near Heathrow.

Edited March 9, 2012 by HighPressure

[summer blizzard]

Only three desalinization plants are really required.

The Thames one at 150L million of water can supply 1 million people. This is actually quite a small scale plant as in Saudi Arabia they are building a plant with a capacity of around 1 billion liters of water, such a plant in the UK at a coast of around £1.5 billion would supply water for 6 million people. Now build one in London, East Anglia and the Southern Counties and you see that you have a sustainable water source for 18 million people. Get some private financing as well and it could be a good investment.

[A Winter's Tale]

The up and coming settled period really is going to cause problems for the drought areas in what could be a record breaking dry March. This could last into April and if our wish of warm, dry summer is granted then God knows how bad things will be. Then of course is Autumn where it can be stormy but an Indian Summer and one anti-cylcone could change everything and our wish of a severe cold, blocked winter would make things worse. Fascinating to see what the weather will be like, the facts and records and what will follow. I'm hoping for some interesting weather but we've now got to realise that the weather we get will effect the drought areas either for good or for bad.

[HighPressure]

Only three desalinization plants are really required.

The Thames one at 150L million of water can supply 1 million people. This is actually quite a small scale plant as in Saudi Arabia they are building a plant with a capacity of around 1 billion liters of water, such a plant in the UK at a coast of around £1.5 billion would supply water for 6 million people. Now build one in London, East Anglia and the Southern Counties and you see that you have a sustainable water source for 18 million people. Get some private financing as well and it could be a good investment.

Yep I think technically it's the easiest solution but you are stretching it a bit with 150ml/d will supply a million as its closet to 600-700,000 with per capita usage at @200ltrs per day. It's still a very expensive way to produce water and not particularly environment friendly. Most of the very big plants use MSF method I believe? The UK is a revese osmosis plant for 150 ml/d is large.

Edited March 9, 2012 by HighPressure

[damianslaw]

The up and coming settled period really is going to cause problems for the drought areas in what could be a record breaking dry March. This could last into April and if our wish of warm, dry summer is granted then God knows how bad things will be. Then of course is Autumn where it can be stormy but an Indian Summer and one anti-cylcone could change everything and our wish of a severe cold, blocked winter would make things worse. Fascinating to see what the weather will be like, the facts and records and what will follow. I'm hoping for some interesting weather but we've now got to realise that the weather we get will effect the drought areas either for good or for bad.

Can't see this month will end up 'record breakingly dry'. Most of the country saw decent rainfall amounts last weekend - with some very notable falls in SE parts.

[Aaron]

I can't see any significant rain in the forecast - we have 10.2mm for the month.

[summer blizzard]

I can't see any significant rain in the forecast - we have 10.2mm for the month.

No rain until Saturday morning at the earliest it seems so a very dry first half of the month.

[picog]

Maybe June will deliver some rain for the south. Might not be a deluge for Scotland over summer, with even a dry looking August if these charts were to verify.

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/images3/euPrecMon.gif

[Summer Sun]

Maybe June will deliver some rain for the south. Might not be a deluge for Scotland over summer, with even a dry looking August if these charts were to verify.

http://www.cpc.ncep....3/euPrecMon.gif

Yes, currently only June is looking like seeing above normal rain for all of the UK

But at the same time June is shown to be warm

[A Winter's Tale]

Yes, currently only June is looking like seeing above normal rain for all of the UK

But at the same time June is shown to be warm

Yes August and June look warm there, unfortuantly July is shown to be the coolest summer month - yet again! I suppose having warmth and rain is better than having a scenario like July 2011 but really it's not the same as the sunshine and warmth that we want and you don't get much victory with a warm month whilst it's wet (however a month currently shown would have many good days like most summers). On the other hand it might be best to have wetter than average summer considering the drought situation and even in a summer like that you will still get some good summer weather.

It's all about the development of NH between now and Late May which will influence our summer. High pressure is currently over us and it can't go very far due to being compressed by the PV (although a forecast of a split...could influence things). You may find that the Azores High may disapear but we may end up with a Euro High. We should watch what the situation is in April and where the High Pressure is and see how it develops into May before we can have an idea of what summer may be like.

[Aaron]

I'd LOVE warm and ran.

[danm]

From BBC News:

BREAKING NEWS: Water companies in southern and eastern England are bringing in hosepipe bans in the face of drought conditions.

[Summer Sun]

Water companies across southern and eastern England are to introduce hosepipe bans amid drought conditions.

Seven firms say they will impose water restrictions after two unusually dry winters left reservoirs, aquifers and rivers below normal levels.

Southern Water, South East Water, Thames Water, Anglian Water, Sutton and East Surrey, Veolia Central and Veolia South East are to enforce restrictions.

The drought-affected areas are the south-east of England and East Anglia.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17340844

[Aaron]

There's water restrictions in France too, around Paris.

[Coast]

Tips for gardeners in the Mail today:

Tips on coping with a hosepipe ban

Today's announcement of hosepipe bans and water restrictions for millions of Britains means it could be a tough year for gardeners, particularly in the South and East. The bans cover customers of Southern Water, South East Water, Thames Water, Anglian Water, Sutton & East Surrey, Veolia Central and Veolia South East.

Five have announced the bans will start on April 5. Sutton & East Surrey and Anglian Water have yet to reveal the date their bans will begin. Water rationing is something all growers will have to get used to. So rather than huff and puff each time a round of hosepipe bans comes in force, I guess it makes sense to get into sustainable, long term good habits now.

• Good soil quality can make a real difference in drought years. Lots of manure and vegetable matter will soak up water and stop the ground drying out so quickly.
  
• If you know where the thirsty runner beans are going, now is a good time to dig a trench and fill it with kitchen compost or balls of newspapers ready for sowing later in the year.
  
• Mulching -or covering the top layer of soil - prevents evaporation. Manure is good for this, as is compost.
  
• If you can't mulch, it's worthing breaking up the surface with a hoe.
  
• It makes sense to use water intelligently. Often vegetable and fruit beds get a soak when they don't really need one. The surface may be parched, but check a couple of inches below and you may find it is reasonably damp.
  
• The experts say a good soaking every three or four days is far more useful for plants that a light sprinkling every day. And they recommend using a rose on a watering can.
  
• Watering at the base of the plant is more efficient. Some gardeners scrape trenches around plants so the water doesn't run away.
  
• Saving water should be a no-brainer. That means using water butts connected to gutters on a shed or greenhouse to collect rainwater - and maybe even syphoning off water collected in a butt into a storage tank. Shove in a hose, suck til the water is nearly in your mouth and then place the business end of the hose into your tank, making sure it is below the hose end in the full water butt.
  
• You are still allowed to run a hosepipe off your own saved water supply. If you do, a drip hose or soaker is the best way to water your beds.
  
• Invest in a second watering can to save the trips to the communal tap when your own water butts have run out. And using a wheelbarrow to carry three or more cans helps when you're feeling particularly slothful.
  
• Remember that Mediterranean plants need more water. Lettuces, rocket and tomatoes are thirsty.
  

http://allotmentblog...-a-drought.html

[Coast]

Do you remember 1976 and will we see the likes of it this year?

With Britain facing the prospect of a hosepipe ban from early April and a potential drought this summer, Brits are looking back at 1976, the year of the last great drought to hit the UK. The summer of 1976, which has been seared into the UK consciousness as the "drought of the century", witnessed soaring temperatures and almost no rainfall as the entire country sweltered under the heat.

For more than a month, the thermometer topped 80°F (26.7°C), and for half of those days temperatures reached 90°F (32.2°C). Rivers slowed to a trickle, while some in Yorkshire stopped flowing completely. The drought was caused by a dry summer in 1975, followed by 16 months of low rainfall. The sixteen months from September (75) to October (76) were the driest on record - data that stretched back to the reign of George II.

By September of ’76, the nation’s water supply ran so low that households in Wales, the Midlands, Yorkshire and East Anglia were left without tap water, with residents reduced to queuing at standpipes in the streets. Without water, companies were forced to cut the working week, while vans patrolled the streets to make sure the hosepipe ban was strictly enforced. People were told to pour washing up water down the toilet to save on flush water, while the government pleaded that bathing was happen in no more than five inches of water.

The situation was so bad that the government appointed a Cabinet Drought Committee, which advised that household consumption was to be reduced by half. The drought eventually broke with rain in October. Could it happen again? Britain has just experienced a drier winter than that which preceded the drought of 1976.

http://www.huffingto..._n_1338830.html

[Coast]

Now here is a major worry.......

A drought in the spring will hit Britain's birds, beer and potatoes

Some of the people most affected by worsening water shortages talk about how drought is impacting on their livelihoods

The conservationists

The three main springs at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' Titchwell Marsh nature reserve, near the Wash, north Norfolk, have run dry. For the first time in 30 years, and possibly longer, fresh water from deep underground is not filling the ditches and reedbeds of the 40-hectare reserve known for its bitterns, water voles and marsh harriers. "The cornerstone of the whole reserve is fresh water. So far, we have just about managed by letting less water out to sea, but if it does not rain heavily soon it will all start to go very wrong in April and May when evaporation starts. Then the water levels will reduce, impacting on fish and wildlife", says Robert Coleman, the senior sites manager.

If the drought continues to May, then the insects will be affected, and the breeding birds will have less to feed on, he says."By June the water levels will have dropped further and the wet areas will have started to dry out. By then the water voles will find it hard to get round the ditches and the moths and insects will be suffering. That will impact on the fish that feed on them and the birds, like the bitterns, which eat the fish." If the drought goes through to July, then Titchwell and much of the natural environment of eastern and southern Britain will be in trouble. If the ditches dry out, then the fish will die and the birds will migrate or not breed. "Birds who use the reserve as a stopover to and from Africa or the Arctic would cease to come, might not breed and would possibly not return for years. It could take years to recover," adds Jasmine Atkinson, who works at the reserve.

Other reserves in East Anglia that depend on winter flooding of land are already being hit worse than Titchwell, Coleman says. "A lot of these birds are already under threat. It's only February, and we've had two dry winters running. It could be catastrophic." John Vidal

The well digger

Tony Brown, a borehole digger, is having a good drought. "We're rushed off our feet. Droughts, like this one and the ones we had in 2006 and 1992, are good for business. They focus people's minds and we're definitely getting an upturn in the number of inquiries." For £3,000-£15,000, Tony (left)his son, Harry, his wife, Angela, and two others will take their bore-drilling machinery and almost guarantee to find water under East Anglia. Based in Haverhill, Essex, they have been drilling boreholes for 26 years and know the geology. In 99% of cases they find water. This week they've been in Royston, replacing an old borehole, and in Elstree digging a new one for a small estate that wants a private water supply.

In the past few years, they have drilled boreholes for polo and cricket pitches, horse companies, and people who want their own supplies. Some are motivated by wanting independence from the water companies, others by money. Water from the mains costs around £1 a tonne. From one of Tony's boreholes it's just 5p. "Yes, there's a drought but there isn't a water shortage. I'd say 90% of the water is lost in runoff. The problem is that the water companies have not invested in infrastructure. There's plenty of water around but they are not good at catching it when it rains. They mainly want to keep their shareholders happy. If the government wants to save water it should make the companies reduce their leaks. Twenty per cent of the water is just wasted."

One of the boreholes Tony services is already 8 metres lower than normal, but most are down 1-2 metres. "If the drought goes on, it will be serious andthe Environment Agency will turn the screw on the big users. It won't affect small boreholes like ours. What they take out is infinitessimal compared to the big users." JV

The farmer

Potatoes are a thirsty crop. They need water right through the growing season, and in dry weather become vulnerable to conditions such as common scab, which retailers will not stand for. Richard Solari, farming 485 hectares in east Shropshire, should in theory be less affected by this year's drought than farmers in the east of England who have been officially under drought status since last year. But his farm, with a light sandy soil, has been suffering – the soil moisture is not what it should be, and with the likelihood of little rain in the coming weeks, he is worried for his potato crop.

"Last year was the longest irrigation season in my memory – we had to irrigate from April onwards and did not finish until October," he recalls. Although he keeps two full reservoirs on his farm, holding 10m and 12m gallons each, and three smaller water storage units, he still had to pump water from the local rivers to offset the dry conditions. This year is shaping up to be even worse. After the second dry winter in a row, water levels in rivers are running low and the amount stored in Solari's reservoirs – plenty in normal years – will not be enough for his crop if the low rainfall continues.

Although he operates a highly efficient irrigation system, Solari says he might have to look at changing it altogether from a targeted spray system to "trickle" irrigation from pipes under the soil. This would be a much more expensive system, but could be the future for farmers if, as the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, warned this week, drought becomes "the new norm".

Normally, potatoes turned down by retailers for their poor appearance could be processed and turned into crisps, frozen chips or other products. But potatoes deprived of water during their growing season make crisps and chips that are darker in colour than the pale gold consumers are used to, and so are rejected by food companies. Then the only option is to sell them for animal feed. "That's the worst-case scenario," says Solari. "It would be horrendous. If all our crop had to go to feed, I'd go out of business." Fiona Harvey

The brewer

An artesian well stretching down to an aquifer below Faversham in Kent has been supplying the Shepherd Neame brewery since 1507, and has never yet run dry. Nevertheless the brewers have still been doing their best to conserve water. Two dry winters have lowered river levels and the government bestowed official drought status on the county this month. Breweries are among the most water-intensive food industries in the UK, needing more than five pints of water, on average, to produce a single pint of beer – and that is just for the brewing process. As a consequence, breweries are among the UK's most water-conscious companies.

Shepherd Neame already boasts a Queen's Award for sustainable development, and uses less water than the industry average for its beers, according to the company's spokesman, John Humphreys. Although many breweries have their own boreholes, or other water sources, as Shepherd Neame does, they are still vulnerable to the drought as barley and hops are likely to rise in price.

Kent, one of the sources of hops for British brewers, has begun to be badly hit by the drought and that could spell trouble for brewers and beer-drinkers. David Wilson, of the British Beer and Pub Association, says that rises in hop and barley prices are likely if the drought continues, and these would feed through into higher prices for beer drinkers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/12/drought-spring-birds-beer-potatoes?newsfeed=true

[Snowangel-MK]

Hosepipe ban to be imposed in drought-hit parts of UK

Water companies across southern and eastern England are to introduce hosepipe bans amid drought conditions.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17340844

[Azores Hi]

So not the right time to be starting a private plant nursery then?

[Ben_Cambs]

For the time being, the area under Cambridge Water won't be facing any hosepipe bans.

[Lauren]

Best get the watering can out then.

It has been very dry here the last few months. Rain way below average. Last month for example, mine and my neighbours rainguage only recorded 15.5mm.

[The PIT]

And already we here the suggestions cropping up that we're going to stay drier than normal in years to come. Of course we've heard it all before and if you go back too 2007 we were going to stay wetter. Just a natural trend of variation however no doubt we will hear in the coming weeks that it's all to do with climate change with the normal doom and gloom tagged on the end.

Anyway if we don't any further rain we will have matched 1975/6 dry weather.

[danm]

New BBC weatherwise video about the drought: http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/17346039

[damianslaw]

And already we here the suggestions cropping up that we're going to stay drier than normal in years to come. Of course we've heard it all before and if you go back too 2007 we were going to stay wetter. Just a natural trend of variation however no doubt we will hear in the coming weeks that it's all to do with climate change with the normal doom and gloom tagged on the end.

Anyway if we don't any further rain we will have matched 1975/6 dry weather.

The global warming theorists have always said summers likely to become wetter and warmer in the NW but warmer and drier in the SE, whereas winters will be wetter and milder everywhere. The last few years have seen some unusually dry winters for the SE, with quite dry winters further north, whereas summers on the whole have ranged from exceptionally wet to just wet or average. The shoulder spring and autumn seasons have been notably very dry which really hasn't helped the situation one bit.

Incidentally Scotland had one of there wettest years on record last year - it doesn't seem right that parts of the country are likely to suffer from water shortages in the coming months when another part is covered in the stuff. It also shows just how varied the British Isles climate is - nowhere in the world sees such differences in such short distances. Conditions in France, Spain and Portugal mind are much worse than SE England at present.