How does UK water network/reservoirs work?

[Evanivitch]

Anyone able to provide some insight to this? Been trying to look into in more depth but nothing found.

I know we don't have a national network to distribute water throughout the country, but how much networking do we have? I know of several large open reservoirs and many smaller underground reservoirs, but apart from the obvious ones (Llyn Celyn etc)

Does my water all come from one reservoir? Is it possible to identify where your water comes from? Is water moved between reservoirs locally?

[sinbaddio]

Evanivitch said:

Anyone able to provide some insight to this? Been trying to look into in more depth but nothing found.

I know we don't have a national network to distribute water throughout the country, but how much networking do we have? I know of several large open reservoirs and many smaller underground reservoirs, but apart from the obvious ones (Llyn Celyn etc)

Does my water all come from one reservoir? Is it possible to identify where your water comes from? Is water moved between reservoirs locally?

This is specifically for United Utilities but it gives you a bit of a picture:

https://www.unitedutilities.com/corporate/about-us...

[blueg33]

My water comes from the river Severn so I know its been filtered by 5 sets of kidneys before it comes to my tap....

When the large pump and filtration station at Tewkesbury was flooded and out of action for weeks, its interesting to see which villages had water and which didn't.

Everything in north Gloucestershire had no water including Cheltenham and Gloucester but a few miles south Stroud did have water. Cheltenham came back on line first as the infrastructure allowed them to pressure up the network faster. Our village was the last back on. We had water from bowsers for a month.

[shunt]

United Utilities network has a huge underground aqueduct structure to connect reservoirs across the region. Some of this is pumped others gravity fed, some impressive engineering dating back to 1910. It's the job of Production Planning to ensure our taps don't run dry. A basic network shown below:

[Evanivitch]

shunt said:

United Utilities network has a huge underground aqueduct structure to connect reservoirs across the region. Some of this is pumped others gravity fed, some impressive engineering dating back to 1910. It's the job of Production Planning to ensure our taps don't run dry. A basic network shown below:

That's interesting! Its the sort of detail I've not seen on OpenInfrastructure.

[shunt]

Evanivitch said:

That's interesting! Its the sort of detail I've not seen on OpenInfrastructure.

This sort of info is probably not in the public domain for a reason, hence why I only posted a very basic overview. Ask any questions, I've been in the water game a while now.

[Evanivitch]

shunt said:

This sort of info is probably not in the public domain for a reason, hence why I only posted a very basic overview. Ask any questions, I've been in the water game a while now.

There's plenty of publicly available information on cell towers, electricity units and substations, gas powerstations etc. OpenInfrastructure is fairly detailed.

It's more understanding how the network of reservoirs work. I assume there's a hierarchy between major reservoirs, feeding more local reservoirs which in turn feed homes, with some interconnecting elements so it's not a 1-to-many relationship between reservoirs and consumers?

Are the water companies effectively in control of a network (s) that doesn't interlink to the other water companies?

[vaud]

Yorkshire water built some form of grid after the 1995 debacle. I don't know all of it but I think the openinfrastructure is not complete given I remember where some of the pipes were being laid.

[skip_1]

Evanivitch said:

There's plenty of publicly available information on cell towers, electricity units and substations, gas powerstations etc. OpenInfrastructure is fairly detailed.

It's more understanding how the network of reservoirs work. I assume there's a hierarchy between major reservoirs, feeding more local reservoirs which in turn feed homes, with some interconnecting elements so it's not a 1-to-many relationship between reservoirs and consumers?

Are the water companies effectively in control of a network (s) that doesn't interlink to the other water companies?

Northumbrian Water can pump water into the Yorkshire water network. Most don't really connect up.

Thirlmere in the Lakes feeds Manchester and the Elan reservoirs in mid-Wales feed Birmingham iirc.

[InformationSuperHighway]

shunt said:

Evanivitch said:

That's interesting! Its the sort of detail I've not seen on OpenInfrastructure.

This sort of info is probably not in the public domain for a reason, hence why I only posted a very basic overview. Ask any questions, I've been in the water game a while now.

Would it be right to assume that reason is to reduce the risk of someone will ill intent doing something to the water supply? Or another reason?

[FRG0]

InformationSuperHighway said:

Would it be right to assume that reason is to reduce the risk of someone will ill intent doing something to the water supply? Or another reason?

Yes, that’s the reason. The level of security on a simple service reservoir structure is quite high.

[Rushjob]

FRG0 said:

Yes, that’s the reason. The level of security on a simple service reservoir structure is quite high.

Folks would be surprised at the response, like the group of students who thought it would be a wheeze to try to lever open the access point of a city centre reservoir only to be confronted by 9 armed cops, two dog handlers and their trained wolves and a helicopter.
Wasn't the end to the evening they were counting on . Certainly in the early 2000's the protection of the water supply network was taken very seriously indeed.

[Thin White Duke]

There has been call from some recently for the UK to build more reservoirs. As a country that get's a lot of rain there should never be a water shortage (unless there is a problem with the supply).

Are there going to be any new reservoirs built in the near future?

[vaud]

Thin White Duke said:

There has been call from some recently for the UK to build more reservoirs. As a country that get's a lot of rain there should never be a water shortage (unless there is a problem with the supply).

Are there going to be any new reservoirs built in the near future?

Depends.

NIMBYs and lobby groups have a lot of power. S

So unless you can find an unwanted valley anywhere...

[otherman]

Thin White Duke said:

There has been call from some recently for the UK to build more reservoirs. As a country that get's a lot of rain there should never be a water shortage (unless there is a problem with the supply).

Are there going to be any new reservoirs built in the near future?

I worked with one of the major companies for many years. The thinking is that from a standing start it would take in the region of 20 years to get a new one operational. First, they'd need to find a valley that no-one objects to being flooded. Number available: 0. So they'd need to propose a few and go to public enquiry, which would take years in itself. Then whichever is chosen, the villagers who need to be compulsory purchased will hack it through all the courts taking more years, and they might win.

So people saying "just build more reservoirs" don't really know what they're talking about. Much like those saying "just fix the leaks", as if the companies haven't thought of that. Any of you actually really know how to fix the leaks for any sort of reasonable amount of money and in any sort of reasonable timeframe (eg, 20 years) you'll get a high paying job easily.

[vaud]

otherman said:

I worked with one of the major companies for many years. The thinking is that from a standing start it would take in the region of 20 years to get a new one operational. First, they'd need to find a valley that no-one objects to being flooded. Number available: 0. So they'd need to propose a few and go to public enquiry, which would take years in itself. Then whichever is chosen, the villagers who need to be compulsory purchased will hack it through all the courts taking more years, and they might win.

Or change the law... lots of things can be done with emergency legislation - if the last few years have taught us anything.

If you can effectively close the country with emergency legislation, you could create legislation allowing the creation of new reservoirs.

Edited by vaud on Tuesday 16th August 21:10

[blueg33]

otherman said:

I worked with one of the major companies for many years. The thinking is that from a standing start it would take in the region of 20 years to get a new one operational. First, they'd need to find a valley that no-one objects to being flooded. Number available: 0. So they'd need to propose a few and go to public enquiry, which would take years in itself. Then whichever is chosen, the villagers who need to be compulsory purchased will hack it through all the courts taking more years, and they might win.

So people saying "just build more reservoirs" don't really know what they're talking about. Much like those saying "just fix the leaks", as if the companies haven't thought of that. Any of you actually really know how to fix the leaks for any sort of reasonable amount of money and in any sort of reasonable timeframe (eg, 20 years) you'll get a high paying job easily.

Fixing leaks is a sticking plaster

Surely you need to maintain the system properly to prevent leaks. I suspect decades or poor maintenance starting with state ownership is the problem when it comes to leaks.

[vaud]

blueg33 said:

Fixing leaks is a sticking plaster

Surely you need to maintain the system properly to prevent leaks. I suspect decades or poor maintenance starting with state ownership is the problem when it comes to leaks.

I suspect a lot of Victorian stuff that predates privatisation is also an issue.

[Quattromaster]

I went to school with a lad whose father ran a pumping station on the north essex / suffolk border.

He used to show us around, there were pipes that headed off up country that you could have driven a small car down. When we started making bolt bombs at school, my pal came in with a “Fuse” from one of the pumps, only it was about 2 foot long and about 6 inches round, 11000 volts rings a bell but I may be wrong.

There was a holding pond behind the main pump building, the water used to cool the pumps, we used to swim in it, like a hot tub it was so warm.

[filthypig]

blueg33 said:

Fixing leaks is a sticking plaster

Surely you need to maintain the system properly to prevent leaks. I suspect decades or poor maintenance starting with state ownership is the problem when it comes to leaks.

And the hands being tied by OFWAT as to how much money you can spend in a 5 year period also means that not everything a water company wants to do can be done for the money allowed to them.

Severn Trent have treated water connections into Anglian, South Staffs, Welsh, Thames and UU. None of real significance for the movement of huge volumes of water, though the bulk of Birminghams water comes in from Wales (untreated). They really just help out areas that are on each other’s borders and help companies achieve their security of supply to its customers.