Drought and water table replenishment

[perdu]

twosocks said:

If only there was some way of collecting all the runoff from urban areas, treating it with reed beds to remove contaminants and then injecting into water bearing rock (aquifers) to top up the groundwater levels! Why are the water companies not doing it in this country?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquifer_storage_and_recovery

Because that is not sticking money in their shareholder's pockets

Your suggestion is called investing in the future

far cheaper to impose drought fears


and watch zillions of litres/gallons (whatever) rush away to sea

[Shaolin]

There was some bloke on the radio yesterday saying "we need weeks of rain to make any difference". Isn't that exactly what we've had?

[Huff]

Go play here:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/

Select ' rainfall' , 'Annual' and the record period you'd like eg 1971-2011. You'll see that over almost all the nation we've only been getting about two-thirds of the usual annual rainfall, meaning a shortfall of about c.200-250mm below average a year for last two or three.

Back of an envelope says the UK needs rather significantly over half a meter of rain to make up the difference (esp in groundwater) for the last two years. That's about 12-15x usual April rainfall, on top of what we are getting.

(Yes, I am surprised too)

[Dogwatch]

Think at least part of the problem is that the water companies have spent a LOT more on conforming to Brussels' ever fussier clean water directives than on infrastructure i.e. replacing old leaky pipes, digging reservoirs etc.

So our water is potable but not always available. Still, if the Sprouties are off their backs that's what counts these days.

[papple]

The water has to be there somewhere. There was plenty of water about when Noah's flood happened.
Where did that all go?

[Dogsey]

I've been having talks about this with a few friends this week and one of the biggest things that we've come up with is the fact that river defences are now so high that our rivers no longer flood. When rivers flood into fields the water has a real chance to actually soak into the ground and top up our water reserves. With our current flood management system in place when we get heavy levels of rain fall all the water is just being channelled straight out to sea.

[MartG]

papple said:

The water has to be there somewhere. There was plenty of water about when Noah's flood happened.
Where did that all go?

The sky pixie stole it all

[TheHeretic]

MartG said:

papple said:

The water has to be there somewhere. There was plenty of water about when Noah's flood happened.
Where did that all go?

The sky pixie stole it all

Well, it is bound to go down. Critters, and man have been drinking it for 6000 years.