Water resilience must be gripped as a national challengeDevon is theoretically now in drought. But what does that really mean? It’s a measure ...

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Water resilience must be gripped as a national challengeDevon is theoretically now in drought. But what does that really mean? It’s a measure ...
Water resilience must be gripped as a national challenge
Devon is theoretically now in drought. But what does that really mean? It’s a measure of the resilience of the water supply we have in our reservoirs based on expected rainfall. The West Country is always disproportionately wet. This year in January to March we had the wettest spring on record. So why are we in drought and why do we have a hosepipe ban?

At the heart of this is the basic arithmetic of the relationship between demand and supply. The average individual uses 145 litres of water a day. The government would like to reduce this to 122 litres a day. In Devon this summer, unless we use less, we won’t have enough to meet expected demand while ensuring future resilience. Hence the hosepipe ban. Clearly we need a buffer. But given the level of rainfall, why has it come to this?

First, the level of rainfall and nature of rainfall has changed. Second, we have not expanded our capacity to catch and store water to match the increasing size of the population. Third, we have failed to adequately deal with water loss through leakage. And finally, whilst water companies are responsible for ensuring water resilience, there are no targets to drive change in the same way that we now have for storm overflows.


Water companies must comply with Ofwat’s long term planning frameworks. They can choose how they deliver resilient supply using reservoirs, water transfer, desalination or effluent reuse. These are expensive projects and right now the urgency to focus on this is missing.

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Much is promised by water companies in their draft Water Resource Management Plans for 2024 – but will the real plans deliver? A lot of reliance is being placed on consumers using less rather than companies collecting more. Of course we need to be careful about what we use, but water companies need to be focused on collection and reducing leakage within their collection and distribution networks.

Although these fixes seem straightforward, the problem is inevitably more complex. Rain doesn’t fall evenly, not every water company has the option of desalination, and those parts of the country with a higher influx of tourists over the summer months are particularly challenged.

The cost of resilience isn’t shared equally across the country. Peaks in demand from new housing developments and tourism in one area, are not balanced out in cost terms by the underuse in the summer months as city dwellers head out to the sea. Quite apart from the different state of disrepair in different water company catchments which drives disproportionate costs, this means the cost of water will vary considerably across the country.

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https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/article/water-resilience-gripped-national-challenge

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