{"id":14683,"date":"2023-06-20T04:09:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T11:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14683"},"modified":"2023-06-22T04:34:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-22T11:34:41","slug":"issue-of-the-week-environment-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=14683","title":{"rendered":"Issue of the Week: Environment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image is-resized\" id=\"bf32e0f5-4445-4471-997c-47b2efe28c0d\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/199e83a3dbac306d0a30623dee4ee1afc93baec6\/0_0_3500_2466\/master\/3500.jpg?width=480&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"Baitings reservoir in Ripponden, West Yorkshire, in summer 2022, when the total stock of water in England's reservoirs was at its lowest level since 1995. \" width=\"839\" height=\"591\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic, <\/em>The Guardian, London, June 2023<br><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There is no more essential need for life on earth than water. Yet it is a subject that is not coverd nearly as much as it should be. We and the planet are at real risk of dying of thirst. The long read in the Guardian, by Tim Smedley, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/2023\/jun\/15\/drought-is-on-the-verge-of-becoming-the-next-pandemic\">&#8220;Drought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic&#8221;<\/a>, tells the story that needs to be told. Here it is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>While the world becomes drier, profit and pollution are draining our resources. We have to change our approach<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>D<\/strong>uring the summer months in the Oxfordshire town where I live, I go swimming in the nearby 50-metre lido. With my inelegantly slow breaststroke, from time to time I accidentally gulp some of the pool\u2019s opulent, chlorine-clean 5.9m litres of water. Sometimes, I swim while it\u2019s raining, when fewer people brave it, alone in my lane with the strangely comforting feeling of having water above and below me. I stand a bottle of water at the end of the lane, to drink from halfway through my swim. I normally have a shower afterwards, even if I\u2019ve showered that morning. I live a wet, drenched, quenched existence. But, as I discovered, this won\u2019t last. I am living on borrowed time and borrowed water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Water stolen from nature, drained from rivers and lakes and returned polluted, allows me to live this way. It will have to stop \u2013 not through some altruistic hand-wringing desire to do better, but because even in England this amount of water will soon be unavailable. Like many parts of the world, we are now using more water than we can sustainably supply. As surface water and groundwater levels dwindle year by year, a crisis awaits. It\u2019s simple maths. Demand is outstripping supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Little old England manages to encompass many global water problems \u2013 scarcity, overabstraction, pollution, underinvestment, government and regulatory failings, environmental degradation and corporate misconduct \u2013 all within the confines of one small country in the far west of Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UK\u2019s average annual rainfall is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org\/country\/united-kingdom\/climate-data-historical#:~:text=The%20UK's%20climate%20is%20maritime,800%20mm%20to%201%2C400%20mm\">about 1,100mm<\/a>, compared with less than\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/climateknowledgeportal.worldbank.org\/country\/pakistan\/climate-data-historical\">300mm in Pakistan<\/a>\u00a0or double figures in Egypt. However, despite our winter storms, significant parts of the UK are staring down the barrel of empty water butts. Much of that four-figure rainfall average is propped up by the rainy Highlands of Scotland, Wales and northern England. In south-east England, where I live, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.onaverage.co.uk\/weather-averages\/average-rainfall-uk#:~:text=In%20the%20south%2C%20south%2Deast,driest%20areas%20of%20the%20UK\">average annual rainfall lingers about 600 mm<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 comparable with Lebanon or Kenya, and drier than Sydney, Australia. This also happens to be the UK\u2019s most populated area, with about 18 million inhabitants packed into just 19,000 sq km, including London\u2019s 1,500 sq km. And it\u2019s drying up, fast.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/water-abstraction-plan-2017\/water-abstraction-plan-environment\">Government figures<\/a><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/water-abstraction-plan-2017\/water-abstraction-plan-environment\">\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/water-abstraction-plan-2017\/water-abstraction-plan-environment\">show<\/a>\u00a0that, in England, 28% of groundwater aquifers, the layers of porous sand and rock that hold water underground, and up to 18% of rivers and reservoirs, have more water taken out than is put back in. This is clearly unsustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not a single one of England\u2019s rivers is classified as being in good ecological health \u2013 this includes chalk streams, a delicate habitat almost entirely unique to England. However, much of the public remains oblivious to a problem that we are all, at least in part, responsible for causing. More than half of the freshwater abstracted in the UK is for household use. The average British resident happily uses&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2022\/aug\/13\/uk-heatwave-save-water-drought\">153l of water a day<\/a>, through showers, toilets, dishwashers, washing machines and garden hoses. Yet climate-change projections show that dry summers in England will increase by up to 50%, with the amount of water available reduced by at least&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.metoffice.gov.uk\/2023\/02\/02\/climate-change-drought-and-water-security\/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%20the%20Environment%20Agency,water%20during%20the%20summer%20months.\">10-15%<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Freshwater shortages, once considered a local issue, are increasingly a global risk. In every annual risk report since 2012, the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www3.weforum.org\/docs\/WEF_Global_Risks_Report_2023.pdf?_gl=1*yx5xt2*_up*MQ..&amp;amp;gclid=CjwKCAjwyqWkBhBMEiwAp2yUFlznxFxiiVJfyIJUD8Ctcq0_fQtWoY2zlZB4b-OQv-WHqkUFEAiPfhoC_QUQAvD_BwE\">World Economic Forum<\/a>&nbsp;has included water crisis as one of the top-five risks to the global economy. Half of the global population \u2013 almost 4 billion people \u2013 live in areas with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.science.org\/doi\/10.1126\/sciadv.1500323#:~:text=The%20number%20of%20people%20facing%20severe%20water%20scarcity%20for%20at,water%20scarcity%20all%20year%20round.\">severe water scarcity<\/a>&nbsp;for at least one month of the year, while half a billion people face severe water scarcity all year round.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There\u2019s only ever the same, finite amount of water churning around in our water cycle. Every drop of water on Earth has been here since the beginning of time, constantly recycled. Up to 60% of the adult human body is water (even bone is a surprisingly splashy 31%). When you die and are cremated or buried, that water will be released again, to the atmosphere or the earth. We are as intimately connected to the water cycle as rivers and lakes are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"22c2d5ee-38af-4044-8874-53bd9a794add\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/8e84dd9ec6684bfe1c86196e5ff5761523394be0\/0_0_3499_2333\/master\/3499.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"Lake Urmia the north-west region of Iran, pictured in 2018, has shrunk by 80% over the last 30 years.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Lake Urmia in the north-west region of Iran, pictured in 2018, has shrunk by 80% over the last 30 years.Photograph: Dominika Zarzycka\/NurPhoto via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, from the Yellow River in China to the Colorado River in the United States, many rivers no longer reach the sea. Often artificially straightened and dammed, water is sucked out and channelled off to supply farms, industries and households. Great lakes, from the Aral Sea in central Asia to Lake Urmia in Iran, have nearly disappeared. Groundwater aquifers, from the Ogallala and Central Valley in the US to India\u2019s Upper Ganges and Pakistan\u2019s Lower Indus, are being depleted faster than they can refill. The remaining freshwater is increasingly polluted with sewage and fertilisers, causing algal blooms that smother and choke ecosystems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to Torgny Holmgren, executive director at the Stockholm International Water Institute, \u201cIf these trends continue, we will need 50% more water in 2050 compared with 20 years ago. And, of course, that is impossible, because water is a finite resource \u2026 This will impact all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Covid brought water issues into sharper focus. \u201cIt\u2019s not like Covid woke us up to the need for water for hygiene; we already knew that,\u201d Gary White, CEO of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/water.org\/\">Water.org<\/a>, told me. \u201cBut I certainly think we hadn\u2019t seen the lack of access to water and sanitation as a global crisis before. When somebody [being unable to] wash their hands in one country becomes the critical link to the spread of disease, then suddenly water and hygiene becomes a global risk.\u201d In June 2021, Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary general\u2019s special representative for disaster risk reduction, said: \u201cDrought is on the verge of becoming the next pandemic, and there is no vaccine to cure it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The good and bad news is that water crises are usually caused by human mismanagement, not climate. But, as climate breakdown bites, precipitation patterns change and climate refugees are forced to move, the timeframe to get our act together is becoming ever shorter. We are currently using up the water sources on which our very existence relies. We can continue doing that until the very last drop. Or we can decide to change our approach before it\u2019s too late. The world isn\u2019t running out of water \u2013 people are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>T<\/strong>he UK\u2019s Waterwise annual conference in 2019 was a niche water efficiency conference in London, attended by a small cadre of water industry types. But it made national news. Sir James Bevan, then chief executive of the Environment Agency, had heavily altered the prepared speech he had been given. An expected tame welcoming address instead became known as the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/mar\/18\/england-to-run-short-of-water-within-25-years-environment-agency\">\u201cJaws of Death\u201d speech<\/a>. As his audience shifted uncomfortably in their seats and a handful of trade journalists suddenly woke up, he said: \u201cThe jaws of death is the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs \u2026 many parts of our country will face significant water deficits by 2050.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The water-abstraction system his agency oversees was \u201cdesigned more than 50 years ago, for a world with less environmental protection, less demand for water and no awareness of climate change\u201d. Just as important as new infrastructure was changing human behaviour: \u201cWe need water wastage to be as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby.\u201d The industry audience didn\u2019t know whether to whoop or weep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On 9 July 2020, the public accounts committee countered that all the bodies responsible for the UK\u2019s water supply \u2013 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), the Water Services Regulation Authority (Ofwat) and Bevan\u2019s Environment Agency (EA) \u2013 had \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/committees.parliament.uk\/committee\/127\/public-accounts-committee\/news\/115817\/england-faces-serious-risk-of-running-out-of-water-within-20-years\/#:~:text=In%20a%20report%20published%20today,supply%20in%20the%20years%20ahead.\">taken their eye off the ball<\/a>\u201d and must take urgent action to ensure a reliable water supply. The committee\u2019s chair, Meg Hillier MP, said: \u201cIt is very hard to imagine, in this country, turning on the tap and not having enough clean, drinkable water come out \u2013 but that is exactly what we now face \u2026 Defra has failed to lead and water companies have failed to act.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Without significant action, the National Audit Office (NAO) forecasts that the total water&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nao.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/Water-supply-and-demand-management.pdf\">demand will start to exceed supply in England no later than 2034<\/a>. However, water companies have already been abstracting (extracting) too much water, leading to environmental degradation and the disappearance of rivers, including the internationally unique chalk streams of the south-east. A reduction of 480m litres a day is needed by 2045 just to lower existing groundwater abstraction to sustainable levels. Something, or someone, has to give, or the UK\u2019s water supply will run out within a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Part of England\u2019s problem goes back to its unique system of private water companies being handed state monopolies. Prior to 1989, water supply was publicly owned, like it is everywhere else in the world. But Margaret Thatcher put a stop to that. In 1989, the 10 water authorities spanning England and Wales had their assets and personnel transferred into limited companies and floated on the London Stock Exchange. Today, almost everyone in England and Wales receives their water and sewerage services from the same 11 water and sewerage companies and six water-only companies (with some specific areas served by small limited companies). Each has its own fiefdom on the map, with no competition, run for private profit; you are obliged to sign up to your regional supplier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"3f8aa692-dc25-4111-95d4-14866ef4be6d\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/1153a740022335f793742b74e94c86e99a946ca5\/0_0_8640_5760\/master\/8640.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"An ancient packhorse bridge is revealed at Baitings reservoir in the West Yorkshire Pennines, 2022.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">An ancient packhorse bridge is revealed at Baitings reservoir in the West Yorkshire Pennines, 2022.&nbsp;Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The Water Act 1989 also removed previous restrictions on the statutory financial amounts water companies could borrow or pay as dividends. To protect the interests of customers and the environment, however, privatisation was coupled with regulatory oversight, most notably from the EA, the Drinking Water Inspectorate and Ofwat. Because of the lack of competition, Ofwat sets limits on the price water companies in England and Wales can charge. And, to ensure that those companies don\u2019t just snaffle the cash and let the infrastructure they inherited fall to ruin, every five years the water companies must also submit statutory water-resources management plans setting out their intended investment approach for the next 25 years. Despite this, a fair amount of cash-snaffling still goes on. A&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2020\/jul\/01\/england-privatised-water-firms-dividends-shareholders\">2017 study by the University of Greenwich<\/a>&nbsp;found that water-company shareholders had received a total of \u00a356bn since privatisation, with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/ee03d551-8eee-4136-9eeb-7c8b51169a99\">some water CEOs<\/a>&nbsp;on \u00a32m annual salaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By 2018, the then leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, was calling for the water companies to be renationalised. Even the incumbent secretary of state for Defra, Conservative MP Michael Gove, attacked the water companies for \u201cplaying the system for the benefit of wealthy managers and owners, at the expense of consumers and the environment\u201d, and suggested that they had \u201cshielded themselves from scrutiny, hidden behind complex financial structures, avoided paying taxes, have rewarded the already well-off, kept charges higher than they needed to be and allowed leaks, pollution and other failures to persist for far too long\u201d. In cash terms, more than \u00a318.1bn was paid out to shareholders of the nine largest water companies between 2007 and 2016, accounting for 95% of profits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Australian infrastructure firm Macquarie owned Thames Water between 2007 and 2017, leaving it with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/business-41152516\">\u00a32bn of debt<\/a>, while paying its investors, according to one analysis, on average between 15.5% and 19% in dividends a year. Instead of making changes to a system that was supporting such poor levels of investment, in August 2021, Ofwat approved a new&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2021\/aug\/09\/macquarie-wades-back-into-uk-with-majority-stake-in-southern-water\">\u00a31bn equity takeover of Southern Water<\/a>. The new owner was&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2022\/jan\/30\/misunderstood-macquarie-takes-another-go-in-uk-water-industry-southern\">Macquarie<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>U<\/strong>nlike the relatively high rainfall of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, England\u2019s water situation is surprisingly perilous. London only has 90 days of water storage at any one time. A water industry insider told me that in 2012, shortly before the Olympics, the capital came within days of exceeding that tally. If it had, Thames Water would have been forced to cut supply to households and install public standpipes. That situation \u2013 dubbed \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/e360.yale.edu\/features\/awaiting-day-zero-cape-town-faces-an-uncertain-water-future\">Day Zero<\/a>\u201d when Cape Town, South Africa, faced the same predicament in 2018 \u2013 remains a serious possibility.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Andrew Tucker, water efficiency manager at Thames Water, tells me bluntly that, in London and the south-east, \u201cwe basically don\u2019t have enough product, going forward. Ultimately, we will need to bring new water supply into the system \u2026 All water companies in the UK rely on winter rainfall to recharge these systems \u2026 If we don\u2019t get that winter recharge, it just drops and keeps on dropping, because our raw water storage [reservoirs] is actually quite small.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tucker is Australian and says mates back home find it funny that England can have a water problem, given its wet reputation. \u201cWe do get a lot of grey days. But grey doesn\u2019t mean rain. Even drizzle doesn\u2019t mean rain.\u201d He gives me a quiz question: \u201cWhich Australian state capital city gets more rain on average every year than London?\u201d I guess Sydney. \u201cThey all do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are several reasons for England\u2019s comparative lack of water storage, Tucker says. First, \u201cevery square inch of land has been used pretty intensively for the last thousand years and there\u2019s not much room to play with\u201d. Second, the south-east is relatively flat, with no valleys to dam. Third, we have a population poorly educated in the need for water saving or living with drought. And water is too cheap \u2013 or at least not valued. When we speak, Thames Water\u2019s combined water supply and wastewater charge is about \u00a32.20 per 1,000l. \u201cYou pay the same for one litre of water at WH Smith at the train station,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"37c0ccf7-7d46-466d-9e95-c4af903f5762\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/307e90dca8428a6f40021090683c815dd6ea5328\/0_0_5000_3333\/master\/5000.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"Tree skeletons at Colliford Lake near Bodmin, Cornwall, 2022.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Tree skeletons at Colliford Lake near Bodmin, Cornwall, 2022.&nbsp;Photograph: Matt Cardy\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Tucker argues that education and cultural awareness are even greater drivers of water efficiency than price, though. He says they are trying to advocate the introduction of water-use restrictions, like in Australia, so \u201cit becomes a cultural thing\u201d. He notes that, in England, companies are \u201ccrucified in the media\u201d for suggesting ways the public can reduce seasonal demand. When I suggest that, after months of heavy winter rain, the public perception is, \u201cWell, why wasn\u2019t that banked somewhere?\u201d, he quickly interjects: \u201cThere is no bank. We want a bank. We\u2019ve been prevented from getting a bank for 20 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thameswater.co.uk\/about-us\/newsroom\/latest-news\/2019\/nov\/london-ring-main-turns-twenty-five#:~:text=combined%20with%20climate%20change%2C%20this%20will%20likely%20result%20in%20a%20shortfall%20of%20350%20million%20litres%20of%20water%20a%20day%20between%20the%20amount%20available%20and%20the%20amount%20needed%20by%202045%20if%20no%20action%20is%20taken.\">Thames Water estimates<\/a>&nbsp;that by 2045, it will need&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thameswater.co.uk\/about-us\/newsroom\/latest-news\/2023\/mar\/final-call-to-have-your-say-on-the-future-of-water-supply\">to find an extra 350m<\/a>&nbsp;litres of water supply a day. The \u201cbank\u201d that they\u2019ve wanted for 20 years is the long-planned but never built&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2023\/apr\/22\/lake-or-mistake-the-row-over-water-firms-drought-and-abingdons-new-super-reservoir\">Abingdon reservoir<\/a>. First&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2006\/sep\/14\/utilities.water\">proposed by Thames Water in 2006<\/a>, it would be the largest major reservoir built in southern England since Rutland Water in 1976, and capable of supplying their entire shortfall with one big project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem is, as Tucker identified, the region has no valleys to flood. The site near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, is perfectly flat, fertile farmland. The only way to build is up \u2013 what\u2019s known as a \u201cbunded reservoir\u201d \u2013 and Thames Water wants a 150bn-litre capacity, which&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonreservoir.org.uk\/downloads\/A3GARDposter2010.pdf\">could take nine years to build<\/a>, according to local campaigners, covering more than 6sq km of land, with built-up<strong>&nbsp;<\/strong>banks 30 metres high \u2013 making it the largest bunded reservoir in the world. This wouldn\u2019t just be a blot on the landscape, it would&nbsp;<em>be<\/em>&nbsp;the landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A public inquiry in 2010 produced a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonreservoir.org.uk\/publicinquiry.html\">326-page report<\/a>&nbsp;concluding that the Abingdon reservoir proposal did not meet the statutory requirements and that a reservoir of that size was not justified by the evidence. That didn\u2019t stop Thames Water from putting it \u2013 with minor tweaks and changes \u2013 into every five-year management plan since. Now rebranded the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thameswater.co.uk\/media-library\/home\/about-us\/regulation\/regional-water-resources\/south-east-strategic-reservoir\/gate-2-reports\/B-3---SESRO-CAR.pdf\">South East Strategic Reservoir Option<\/a>, as a joint proposal between Thames Water and Affinity Water (supplier of drinking water to the south-east, owned by various fund managers), it looks likely to finally go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>England does need more water storage \u2013 and London\u2019s 90-day supply is clearly untenable with dry summers set to increase. But does it need a giant sledge-hammer solution to land in rural Oxfordshire? Or, as local campaigners the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonreservoir.org.uk\/index.html\">Group Against Reservoir Development<\/a>&nbsp;argue, are there myriad other, less damaging, options on the table? One of which is the storage beneath our feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>R<\/strong>egenerative agriculture, a system that works without ploughing, has begun to attract attention in places as far-flung as the US, Australia and the UK. The idea of the \u201cno-till\u201d method is to prevent soil disturbance at all costs. Tilling (another term for ploughing) is \u201clike a tornado coming through an ecosystem\u201d, explains Evan Wiig, a former rancher who now promotes regenerative farming for the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/caff.org\/team\/evan-wiig\/\">Community Alliance With Family Farmers<\/a>. The plough destroys the connections between \u201cthe fungi, the nematodes, the earthworms, all of that subterranean ecosystem. The more you can keep that intact, the better water-holding capacity you have.\u201d Healthy soil is a sponge of crisscrossing roots, wormholes and mycorrhizal fungi, all of which retains moisture, maintains nutrients and captures carbon. You also find healthy, recharged aquifers beneath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unlike in the western US, where artificial irrigation is necessary, farming in the UK is almost entirely rainfed. But the rains are becoming less and less reliable. James Alexander\u2019s family has been farming in Oxfordshire for generations. \u201cThere\u2019s no seasons any more,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the last three years, we\u2019ve just had wet and dry. It does get a little colder in the winter, but not like it used to \u2026 the last two winters have been two of the wettest on record, but actually that rain\u2019s only fallen in about six weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was May when I visited in 2021, and he asked, rhetorically: \u201cRemember April showers? We only had 2mm of rain last month.\u201d That\u2019s why he now prefers no-till farming. He described conventionally ploughed fields as containing \u201csad soil\u201d, simply a dead growing medium to hold the plants upright; many litres of pesticide and fertiliser need to be sprayed to grow anything in it. The topsoil also compacts under the constant heavy machinery, forming a hard cap layer, causing nearby roads to turn into muddy streams with each significant rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out on the no-till field, meanwhile, his boots never get muddy. The soil forms an intricate sponge that soaks up water, both delivering it down to the groundwater and maintaining moisture for the crops. The undisturbed mycelial fungal network has been found to supply&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.creatingtomorrowsforests.co.uk\/blog\/the-wood-wide-web-why-fungi-are-essential-to-forests\">80% of a crop\u2019s nitrogen requirements and up to 100% of its phosphorus requirements<\/a>, and to provide water to crops in times of drought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"5c2ee5e6-ea24-45aa-97ad-83186163b96e\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/325e069cbe90835efd7a60d151b1eb17f90a6652\/0_0_8192_5464\/master\/8192.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"The River Derwent in Cumbria has run dry in parts of the Borrowdale valley for the third consecutive year.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">The River Derwent in Cumbria has run dry in parts of the Borrowdale valley for the third consecutive year.&nbsp;Photograph: Christopher Thomond\/The Guardian<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>We gain underground water storage too. And not just a marginal gain. Water supply, and water storage, all comes down to capturing rainfall \u2013 and there is no greater surface area in England than farmland. Jake Rigg, then director of corporate affairs and communities at Affinity Water, in the east of England, told me he had asked an agricultural research institute to establish how much more water can go to the natural underground aquifer using no-till techniques. \u201cAnd they said, \u2018You\u2019re talking about having an Abingdon reservoir-sized amount of extra water in the aquifer\u2019.\u201d Such a volume would, in effect, solve England\u2019s water-scarcity problem. Without, by the way, having to build the Abingdon reservoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On England\u2019s south coast,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.southernwater.co.uk\/our-story\/more-water-stories\/working-with-farmers-to-improve-soil-health-and-water-quality\">Southern Water are now paying farmers<\/a>&nbsp;to leave crops on their fields over winter, rather than bare, tilled earth \u2013 financially incentivising no-till farming. This is not only for the groundwater-recharge benefits, but also to reduce nitrates from conventional farming leaching into the groundwater and rivers. Robin Kelly, catchment risk management officer at Southern Water, told me that \u201cnitrate concentrations in many of our groundwater sources are high and rising, and it is this trend we are focusing on and trying to reverse. The results clearly show a benefit of having continuous green cover over the winter.\u201d In the first year of the scheme, farmers near Brighton were offered \u00a335 per hectare of overwinter cover crops. In some regions,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fwi.co.uk\/business\/farms-paid-109-ha-by-water-companies-to-grow-cover-crops\">this has since increased to \u00a3109\/ha<\/a>. The simple calculation is that it\u2019s more expensive for water companies to treat the water than it is to pay the farmers not to pollute it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>W<\/strong>e can all do our bit to capture the rain. While the average Briton uses more than 150l a day, performance artist&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.exploringexeter.co.uk\/review-life-on-water-at-bike-shed\/\">Chloe Whipple spent a year living on just 15l of mains water a day<\/a>. Key to her success \u2013 which began via a project matching local artists with scientists, and paired her with Exeter University\u2019s water expert Dr Peter Melville-Shreeve \u2013 was rainwater. A small grant helped her to get a 200l rainwater butt plumbed into her toilet. Collected rainwater was counted as free to use. And it changed her relationship with the rain for ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite living on the relatively dry south coast, \u201cthere is so much rainfall,\u201d Whipple says. \u201cI mean, obviously, there\u2019s more and more dry periods now. But there\u2019s so much that we could be harvesting and storing.\u201d You might think, then, that Whipple\u2019s message would be that everyone should do more to reduce their personal water use. It is partly that. But her main message is quite different. \u201cI feel like, a lot of the time, the onus is on us as individuals to completely change our behaviour, and buy all the stuff we need to be self-sufficient \u2013 that it\u2019s our sole responsibility \u2026 When really it\u2019s a much bigger picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Melville-Shreeve has tried to engage housing developers and water companies with large-scale rollouts of domestic rainwater capture, only to be frustrated; Whipple, too, sees a lack of engagement from the very authorities tasked with averting the coming water crisis. \u201cThere\u2019s just literally no one making decisions for the long term, it\u2019s so shortsighted,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"3249ae14-1b07-4b3b-9852-ccbd7e8edaee\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/f4be07cbb493b5feeddc496c5ab58cae13c4054a\/0_0_4697_3126\/master\/4697.jpg?width=445&amp;quality=85&amp;dpr=1&amp;s=none\" alt=\"A water leak in the middle of a residential road caused by a burst water main.\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A water leak in the middle of a residential road caused by a burst water main.Photograph: JEP Worthing\/Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The waste that happens in our water systems, the pollution of our rivers, the leakages in the underground pipes, the building codes that allow developers to build water- inefficient houses: all that happens before we even turn a tap on. The wastage, the 150l a day, is built into the system. There is a lot we can do as individuals, but those things almost all boil down to water-efficient appliances, rainwater capture and greywater recycling, all of which could and should be integral to water company practices and building regulations. In Belgium, for example, you don\u2019t consider installing a rainwater-capture tank in a newbuild home \u2013 you have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Should we all be showering with buckets by our feet to capture the water and reuse? It\u2019s not a bad idea. In parts of the world that have experienced water rationing, such as Cape Town, and mining towns in Australia, it remains a common practice \u2013 once you\u2019ve lived it, the lessons tend to stick. But the bigger wins are to be found in changing water company practices through regulation, and incentivising new farming practices through education and compensation: Defra\u2019s environmental land-management services payments can incentivise regenerative and cover-crop farming methods, and compensate for the restoration of floodplains. This should include beaver reintroductions, which have been found to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/sep\/02\/the-guardian-view-on-beavers-a-spur-to-hope-for-natures-recovery\">regenerate and restore rivers and wetlands<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"d8996406-de6d-46c2-b719-1bdca60e8ea8\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/business\/2016\/oct\/06\/liquid-assets-how--business-bottled-water-went-mad\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/fa6d588ed298ff8443ef21794876fc513a5f8f69\/0_0_7130_4278\/master\/7130.jpg?width=460&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=dbf5a4c26f0a25940bf1528422e4a22e\" alt=\"A plastic water bottle without a cap that has condensation on it<br&gt;GettyIm2ages-164848718\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We canalised our rivers, drained our land, overpumped our groundwater, dried our wetlands, burned our peat, killed off our keystone species, all in the belief that modern engineering had decoupled us from our dependence on the natural system. It was always hubris. The climate crisis hasn\u2019t caused the water crisis we now face, it has simply shone a punishing, unyielding light on it. The answers, from Abingdon to Accra to Amman, lie in holding on to the rain that falls on the land. And nature does this best of all. Now our engineered systems must work with nature, not against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This is an edited extract from&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/guardianbookshop.com\/the-last-drop-9781529058147\">The Last Drop: Solving the World\u2019s Water Crisis<\/a>, published by Picador<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is no more essential need for life on earth than water. Yet it is a subject that is not coverd nearly as much as it should be. We and the planet are at real risk of dying of thirst. The long read in the Guardian, by Tim Smedley, &#8220;Drought is on the verge of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,54],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14685,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14683\/revisions\/14685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}