How close is Day Zero?
Rachel Salvidge
Could we run out of water? “People would be shocked if they knew just how close we’ve come to Day Zero in England,” a former Environment Agency officer told me some time ago.
Day Zero, sometimes known as the Jaws of Death by those numb to melodrama, is the time when a city or country runs out of drinking water. When the taps run dry and the standpipes or tankers are deployed. To be fair, it is quite a dramatic scenario.
To many on this damp little island that regularly floods, the idea’s preposterous. But it’s a very real threat in parts of the UK and Europe. The Environment Agency for England has warned of widespread drought next year unless there’s lots of rain over the winter and so far, it’s not looking good.
I wanted to understand what’s happening to freshwater supplies across the UK and the wider continent, to our rivers, lakes and groundwater. Groundwater (aquifers) are generally thought to be more resilient to climate change but I wanted to know how they were holding up.
Fortunately NASA’s GRACE satellites have been orbiting the Earth for decades, and by observing changes in the gravity field, can estimate changes in the amount of water stored in a region. And more fortunately, I know some clever people who can make sense of that data.
Working with Professor Mohammad Shamsuduhha and postdoctoral researcher Arifin, we could see stark drying and wetting trends across the UK and the continent and mapped them, revealing huge regions with shrinking water resources while others in the north look to be getting wetter, both outcomes having far reaching consequences for people, agriculture, wildlife and wider industry.
The map and story was published in the Guardian at the weekend:
I followed this up with a second story revealing that tensions are rising between the government, regulators and the water industry as the Environment Agency warns of a possible nationwide drought next year. Each blames the other for not factoring increasing volumes of water needed for industrial growth, including clean energy needed to hit carbon emissions reduction targets. The omission could lead to water shortages in some regions, according to new analysis.
Read more about the scrap here:
My previous stories have revealed that it’s not clear that anyone in government or elsewhere has a handle on how much water is being taken from the environment at any one time. There are systems in place but they are patchy and disjointed and often rely on self reporting.
I’ve also found that the Environment Agency, the regulator responsible for overseeing water taken directly from rivers and groundwater, rarely checks up on users to make sure they aren’t taking more than their licensed amount, according to whistleblowers. When you add that to the fact that the water sector loses eye-watering amounts from its creaking systems every day, the picture starts to look pretty shambolic.
- England’s rivers ‘under threat’ as water extraction surges to record levels
- How England’s outdated water tracking system leaves regulators in the dark
- Environment Agency has nearly halved water-use inspections in last five years
- Environment Agency has ‘no idea’ how much water is taken, says whistleblower
- Water firms in England and Wales lost 1tn litres via leaky pipes in 2021
Today there are flood warnings in some parts of the UK while others remain water stressed. It’s clear we need to be managing water better and it’s critical that at the very minimum we need to know who’s using what.
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rachel.salvidge@watershedinvestigations.com
