There is a global water crisis unfolding before our eyes. From floods in the Balkans to drought in California, from chronic water pollution in China to mass disconnections in Detroit, we are seeing the fabric of our society threatened by our mismanagement of our most important resource.

We have all heard that 780 million people lack access to clean water, but the crisis is unfolding in many other ways too. Water is now a global commodity. It is traded in the clothes we wear and the things we eat. The concept of embedded water can be explained with a quick look in the kitchen: drought in Brazil is about to directly impact on the cost of your coffee (Arabica bean prices are up 45% since last year) and in 2013 China announced that it would move to importing rather than growing food because of water shortages, which will increase the price of everything.

It takes a staggering 200m litres of water every second to grow the world's food and we are simply running out. We may live on a blue planet, but most water is saline, trapped in ice, or deep underground. Less than 1% is available for human use and we need to share this water with the natural environment. Slowly large corporations are buying up land that has associated water rights.

The overlap between water and food is only one part of the picture. Pumping and treating water and sewerage takes vast amounts of energy, and heating water takes even more: it takes five times more energy to heat water than to heat granite, for example. Desalination is not an answer: I was recently told by some Gulf water managers that the Gulf states currently use a third of their gas and oil production to run their desalination plants. Producing energy takes water too, and this means that there is global competition for water between farming, power and public supply. The more interdependent these sectors are, the more susceptible we become to cascading failure. As an example we have already seen power cuts in Europe in 2006, when the levels on the Rhône fell too low for the cooling intakes on the nuclear power stations, and these power cuts then shut down the water treatment plants. Before you scoff at the incompetence of the French, flooding on the Severn a few years ago shut down a water treatment plant which meant people had water round their ankles but nothing in the tap.

At the same time climate change is changing spatial and temporal rainfall patterns. Combined with a growing population this means that by 2035 two-thirds of the global population will live in an area of water stress. It is therefore not surprising that this year the US military stated water shortage as a primary threat to global stability.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The River Chess, a clear-running clean chalk stream flowing from Chesham. Many chalk stream rivers are now classified as over-abstracted. Photograph: PCJones/Alamy

So what does this mean for the UK? Climate change means we will see more floods and droughts, possibly even simultaneously. We will see increased competition for water between public supply, farming and power, particularly if we allow widescale fracking to take place. At the same time the aquatic environment will suffer. There are conflicting views on the state of the environment depending on the baseline you take, but here in the UK we have already lost 90% of our natural wetlands, many of our rivers and denaturalised canals, there is widescale over-abstraction and the Environment Agency predicts that a changing climate will mean some summer river flows will drop by 80% whilst winter flooding will increase.



The UK has very few internationally significant habitats, but the main one is our unique chalk stream habitats such as the Itchen, the Test and the Lee. These are crystal clear streams fed from the chalk rock which team with wildlife and shape much of the countryside of southern England. But these streams are under threat. They are directly or indirectly the source of most of the water supply for south-east England and most are classified as over-abstracted. During drought years many stretches are dry. Our water demand for public supply and agriculture means that we are causing damage to our rivers and ultimately threatening our own supplies of water.

However, unlike many other environmental problems, this one is tractable. There is a direct link between the aquatic environment and our domestic water consumption. Over the past couple of centuries we have become increasingly detached from our local rivers. Most UK towns exist because of their relationship to water; for trade, for fishing, for farming, for defence, for drinking, for transport. But the vast majority of the population don’t know which catchment they’re in or even what a catchment is. It is the fault of engineers (I can say this as I am one): we have dammed and straightened and dredged and culverted and covered our rivers. At the same time we have done a very good job of supplying water and sewerage services, so no one has to think when they turn on the tap or flush the toilet.



This means that we are currently using an average of 150 litres of water per person per day, compared to about 90 in Denmark. That’s about a tonne of water a day for the average British family.



To put it in terms of the natural environment, that would drain over 40m of Chalk Stream per year. If you multiply this up by our ever growing population you can quickly see that is unsustainable.

Things are slowly changing. The people affected by flooding are now all too aware of their local catchment, and as more of us experience drought we will start to think when we turn on the tap. The denaturalisation of rivers and supply-side mentality is at last being questioned, and we are seeing projects to uncover urban streams and slow down the flow of water in the urban landscape through sustainable urban drainage systems (Suds), and water-sensitive urban design and even humble water butts. This is the long-term sustainable way to deal with flooding not more canalisation and dredging.

We are also seeing more engagement with water consumers. Increased metering and better information is enabling us to see how much we use and make the link between bills and consumption, and even between water consumption and energy bills. These types of localised distributed solutions are starting to take hold, but much of this is happening in spite of, rather than because of, government. We have just had a lamentable Water Bill that ignores metering and consumer behaviour and demands management and catchment-based approaches, and we have seen in quick succession a knee-jerk reaction to drought, followed by a knee-jerk reaction to flooding. And when there isn’t a water crisis on the television screen then the government does nothing. No strategy, no leadership, no plan.

Fortunately people are taking action into their own hands at a grassroots level. Local community groups, NGOs, water companies, local councils and others are increasingly working in collaboration, and coming up with projects that link residents back to their rivers so we can celebrate our water landscape and heritage. They are organising collaborative management of farmland, influencing people's behaviour and water consumption and organising work on urban drainage so that rainwater can be used for vegetable plots in schools or to enhance streetscapes. We are seeing home water refits with efficient devices that cleverly cut consumption and reduce waste without affecting performance.

If all this was co-ordinated at a national level we could combat floods and droughts, reduce household bills, cut emissions, create skilled local jobs, enhance and beautify urban landscapes and restore our natural environment. So what are we waiting for?



Jacob Tompkins is the managing director of Waterwise, an NGO that promotes water efficiency.

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