Water shortages and reallocation
April 2019: Data suggests that Britain will experience significant water shortages due to climate change by 2050. It is paramount to consider the social and environmental impact of water management projects when defining policies and investments into water security.
Information
Research conducted by the Britain’s Environment Agency suggests that Britain will experience significant water deficits by 2050, particularly in population dense areas. Climate change causing hotter and drier summers could amount to a 10-15 per cent decline in available water. Further, rising temperatures will cause less predictable rainfall, creating higher risks of drought. The pressure on water reservoirs will be heightened by Britain’s growing population and increasing urbanisation. Moreover, the evidence suggests that domestic and industrial water consumption will compete in future with water needed for the agricultural sector.
Implications and opportunities
To avoid severe water shortages and to avoid water wastage, the Environment Agency is calling for incremental steps to manage water distribution in Britain. These steps include higher social awareness, changes in attitudes towards water conservation within society, building desalination plants, and designing projects to reallocate water from rural to urban regions. Further, water companies have committed to reduce water leakage by 50% by 2050. However, evidence from areas already facing similar challenges such as Los Angeles, Cape Town, or Melbourne show that water conservation projects require balanced and careful planning. Groundwater overdraft in permanently compacted clay layers, reduced groundwater storage capacity, and caused land to sink. Moreover, water reallocation projects that do not involve local communities can further inequality and cause points of conflicts between rural and urban areas.
Limitations
Available data to model the social and environmental impact of managing water shortages is scarce. As a consequence, studies exploring policies and investment that aim to address water shortages are often based on estimates and show an increased margin of error.
Sources
The New York Times. (2019). Britain (Yes, Rainy Britain) Could Run Short of Water by 2050, Official Says. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/world/europe/uk-water-shortage.html?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FSustainable%20Development
Lede, E., Meleady, R., & Seger, C. R. (2019). Optimizing the influence of social norms interventions: Applying social identity insights to motivate residential water conservation. Journal of Environmental Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2019.02.011
Garrick, D., De Stefano, L., Yu, W., Jorgensen, I., O’Donnell, E., Turley, L., … Wight, C. (2019). Rural water for thirsty cities: a systematic review of water reallocation from rural to urban regions. Environmental Research Letters, 14(4), 043003. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ab0db7