North-West Now In Drought, Environment Agency Confirms
The north-west of England has just been classified by the Environment Agency as being in drought, with declines in river flows and groundwater levels seen off the back of the driest start to spring in 69 years.
Although wetter weather has been seen over the last two weeks or so, it has not yet been sufficient to replenish supplies, with the region’s reservoir storage levels also receding and lower than they were at this time of year during the droughts seen in 1984, 1995 and 2022.
With drier conditions expected to come in the near future, it’s likely that situation will only get worse, so now’s the time for businesses to prepare, prioritise sustainable water management and find ways to save water.
This move by the agency will see operational responses increased while making sure that water companies accelerate the actions agreed upon in their drought plans, including customer communication, supporting people to reduce demand, fixing leaks and submitting drought permits to take more water as appropriate.
Water regulation manager Andy Brown said: “Drought is a naturally occurring phenomenon. As we see more impacts from climate change, heavier rainfall and drier summers will become more frequent. This poses an enormous challenge over the next few decades.
“Despite the rain over the weekend, levels remain low and we are encouraging people to be aware of the impacts of drought as we enter the summer period. With further unsettled periods and rainfall over the coming weeks we will continue to closely monitor the situation and implement our drought plan.”
Drought management in the north-west
Water supplier drought plans are updated every five years and United Utilities’ approach is expected to be in place until 2027, tying in with its water resources management plan.
The supplier serves seven million domestic customers and 200,000 businesses in the region and the plan details what actions will potentially be taken during drought conditions to protect essential resources, shore up public supply and minimise environmental damage.
Operational actions
Operational actions taken by United Utilities relate to water source availability and supply network setup. Initial actions include enhanced monitoring, the close control of compensation and prescribed flows, and increasing the use of pumping and boreholes
From there, networks can be rezoned to meet demand, ongoing/planned outages can be concluded or postponed until the zone in question recovers, mitigation plans can be discussed for major outages with regulators and discussions can take place with the Environment Agency to review water bank use.
Drought permits can then be applied for and implemented where granted, while engaging with local resilience forums and considering the use of deadwater in the Castle Carrock reservoir. Finally, Level 4 actions include using standpipes and implementing emergency planning procedures.
Demand-side actions
Demand activities have an essential role to play in managing drought conditions and securing water supplies, with customers asked to reduce usage through phased interventions.
Water efficiency measures include installing water meters, identifying and repairing leaks, reducing water pressure in certain parts of the network to help reduce demand and water use restrictions such as temporary use bans, ordinary drought orders and emergency drought orders.
Supply-side actions
Before supply-side options are considered, United Utilities operates all its available licenced water sources during drought to conserve supplies appropriately. The company now regularly uses and maintains back-up sources so that they’re quickly available when required.
Some previously non-commissioned sources are now used during normal operation, which helps to build resilience and safeguard against asset failure. During droughts, the aim is to increase the use of these sources, which include the Pex Hill, Water Lane, Netherley and Stockswell boreholes, as well as the Castle Carrock reservoir.
Drought permits and orders
Drought permits and orders may be considered if the drought risks getting worse and leading to the loss of supply to customers and the environment. These must be applied for early enough for the relevant permitting authority to consider them.
Historical event reviews and future scenario modelling have allowed the water supplier to identify those locations where there is a reasonable possibility that these orders will need to be applied for. These locations include Jumbles, Fernilee, Dovestone, Delph, Rivington, Ullswater and Windermere.
Extreme drought measures
Tests carried out on drought levels suggest that using drought permits/orders and enacting supply-side options would enable United Utilities to avoid using standpipes and rota cuts under historic drought scenarios.
Assessments show that if the worst drought on record happens again, the region’s reservoirs wouldn’t run dry but they would fall to very low levels.
In this instance, action would be taken before this happens to shore up supplies in case drought conditions became more severe. Water use restrictions and drought permits would be introduced before low reservoir levels were seen.
In very extreme droughts, where no water supply at customer taps is seen, United Utilities would work with local resilience forums to implement supply plans for the emergency distribution of safe water.