Press Statement: New reservoirs alone will not tackle water scarcity threat

With drought predictions for the summer getting ever more dire and reservoirs a long way down the planning line, we need to look at pressure on our water supplies more strategically. Large reservoirs may well be part of the solution for the long term, but we need action now on how we use the water we have and how we manage rainwater as it falls.

Step one: manage the rain where it falls - hold the water in the landscape by improving soil health and restoring our river corridors and providing green spaces in towns so the water fills our underground reservoirs.

Step two: reduce demand – we are one of the most water thirsty nations in Europe consuming 150 litres per person per day compared to Denmark’s 98 litres. We can achieve this with water efficient homes, grey and rainwater reuse – we don’t need drinking standard water to wash our cars, flush our loos, wash our dogs or water the garden. And strategically, do we need to put ever more housing and demand into the most water stressed parts of our country? The south and east are home to our most vulnerable rivers, chalk streams which are dying as a result of water abstraction for our homes and agriculture.

Step three: our food supply is even thirstier than we are; roughly 70% of all freshwater abstraction goes to agriculture. We would like to see smaller on-farm reservoirs to store rainwater, which can be built quicker, serve other functions, and have less of an impact on the atmosphere and the environment.

The Government must tackle the threat of water scarcity holistically alongside flooding and water quality. That is the only way its ambitious agenda for water and the environment can ever be realised.

Mark Lloyd, Chief Executive