Companies that use a lot of water need their commercial supplier to be resilient and reliable. This means not only should supplies be regular and not subject to disruption, but any faults and issues that do occur should be dealt with swiftly.
Companies will naturally be thinking about switching water supplier if they get a poor deal in any of these ways, as well as poor value for money. Some will also take a stance if they find their supplier is culpable for pollution incidents.
However, the last of these is not just a matter of ethics. A water company that illegally dumps sewage or allows other pollution incidents to happen frequently will, in doing so, display good reasons for your company not to rely on them. Such events are a clear signal that there is either an absence of care and professionalism, a lack of investment, or both.
New Climate Challenges
This has never been truer than now, as climate change and a growing population mean the UK faces increased water challenges. Companies that fail to meet them will be found out. Demand is rising while the weather becomes increasingly capricious, with threats of drought and flood alike increasing.
The first of these has seemed particularly pertinent this spring. The Met Office recorded the sunniest April on record in the UK, while continued hot and dry weather in May has led to water companies warning of a potential drought as reservoir levels have plummeted. Water levels are especially low in the north.
Fortunately, the latter part of May has brought more rain (although not such good news for those hoping to enjoy more sunshine over the spring bank holiday).
It is not uncommon for a dry spring to be followed by a very wet start to summer. High pressure that keeps spring dry, aided by a static jet stream, is known as a ‘locked’ weather pattern. It causes low pressure and banks of rain to build up in the Atlantic and then, when conditions finally change, sweep in with very soggy results.
Prepare For The Whiplash
However, that common pattern may be subject to something that has not been so familiar in the past – ‘whiplash weather’. Simply put, this means that as the climate changes, the dry weather gets drier and the wet wetter.
As the BBC explained, this prospect arises because spring is the time when the northern hemisphere warms fastest, so a blocking pattern will produce more dry weather, more evaporation and a greater build-up of moisture, which is itself a product of a warmer climate. The inevitable result is that when the rains come, they are much heavier.
The BBC article went on to explain that not all meteorologists are convinced that this ‘whiplash’ pattern of more severe swings in weather will happen, as some predict the jet stream will behave differently. Nonetheless, it is a prospect that water companies, among others, will need to prepare for.
More Reservoirs, More Rows?
Since blocked weather patterns, if they do become pronounced, will not just be a feature of spring, there will be a need to deal with more droughts and more floods throughout the year. In the first instance, this raises the issue of how to avoid becoming severely water-stressed.
An obvious solution is to build more reservoirs and, 30 years on from the last new reservoir to be constructed in England, ten are planned over the next few years, such as the Havant Thicket Reservoir in Hampshire and the more contentious Abingdon Reservoir.
Of course, reservoirs take time and money to build and many attract a lot of opposition. In the Abingdon case, campaigners such as Group Against Reservoir Development (GARD) have claimed it will increase the local flood risk and would not be needed if Thames Water were better at fixing and preventing leaks.
Are More ‘Super Sewers’ The Answer?
Reservoirs are not the only issue. Just as important will be how water systems cope with flooding. Often, people think of floods only in terms of swollen rivers that inundate houses, but while this is the most obvious issue, it is also worth considering how extra water flowing into drains can lead to overflows.
It is just this issue that led to the Thames Tideway Tunnel being built to prevent London’s Victorian sewer system from being overwhelmed and causing more sewage to overflow into the Thames. This is not just a weather issue either, as the original sewer network was built for a city of between four and six million people, not the nine million of today.
The new ‘super sewer’ was partly funded by the much-maligned (and fined) Thames Water, so perhaps even they deserve some credit for once. But water users across the country may rightly ask just what their supplier is doing to deal with a changing climate prone to both more floods and more droughts.
