The National Drought Group, which includes representatives from a variety of agencies including the Met Office, the National Farmers’ Union, water companies and the Canal & River Trust, has described the water shortage being experienced across much of England as “nationally significant”.
In its meeting earlier this month, the organisation revealed that five areas in England are officially experiencing a drought, while six other areas have had a prolonged period of dry weather.
The shortfall in the country’s water supply has been described as a “nationally significant incident” by the National Drought Group, which is calling for everyone in the country to do what they can to reduce water usage.
While water companies are being urged to fix leaks in their systems as quickly as possible, the organisation also asked businesses and households to take steps to reduce their water usage wherever possible.
Farmers in particular have been heavily hit by the prolonged spell of dry weather the UK has experienced this year, with harvests affected and many sharing their concerns about what will happen to their businesses later in the year.
What does a drought mean?
The Environment Agency classifies droughts in different ways – as environmental, agricultural or water supply. An environmental drought is one that affects nature and the environment most severely, while an agricultural drought affects farming practices in the UK.
For most of us, a water supply drought is the one that affects us directly, as this occurs when water companies have concerns about being able to supply customers with water. It’s why all water companies in the country have their own drought plans that explain how they can deal with such shortages.
What can you do to reduce water usage?
We all know about simple steps we can take to reduce our water usage at home, such as making sure we don’t leave the tap running when we’re cleaning our teeth, using water savers in our toilet cisterns and opting for showers over baths whenever possible.
But Helen Wakeham, chair of the National Drought Group and director of water at the Environment Agency, also highlighted the importance of deleting old emails and reducing our digital storage.
This is because the data centres that power our modern online world use a vast amount of resources – including water. Many data centres use water to keep their servers cool, but as a University of Oxford article pointed out, they often don’t share just how much water they are using for this purpose.
Therefore, as individuals, we can reduce some of the strain by stripping back our cloud-based storage, such as by deleting old emails and even reducing the number of old files we have backed up virtually online.
As a business, this might mean encouraging your employees to regularly clear out their inboxes, which will not only help reduce the energy you’re using in distant data centres but also keep your cloud storage bills a little lower.
You might also want to look into switching business water suppliers as this can help you reduce your water bills – particularly if you’ve been taking steps to reduce your water usage where possible.
It can be easy to be overcharged for your water use without even realising it, so if you have been actively working to reduce how much water you use in your business day-to-day then switching could help you cut your bills too.
When will the drought in the UK end?
This is very hard to predict, as it depends on increased rainfall over a prolonged period of time to allow water levels to recover. Assessments by the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology have suggested that the drought currently being experienced in many parts of England could persist into September.
According to the organisation, even if England experiences average rainfall over the next two to three months, many rivers in central and south-eastern parts of the country will still be categorised as low. It’s a similar picture in the north-east of England and eastern Scotland too.
To return river levels to normal, the country needs to experience “significantly above average rainfall” for many months.
So, while many have been enjoying the heatwave this summer, the long dry spells we’ve experienced have had a significant impact on our water supplies and are likely to continue to do so.
All eyes will be on the weather forecast as we move into autumn for signs that we’re not only going to experience rain, but that this will last for a sustained period to help replenish the country’s natural water supplies.
