water shortage

[mrrobbo15]

...i read that april showers are not going to stop any hosepipe bans....anyone else think the water shortage is caused by the ever increasing car washes, which are popping up everywhere ?

[Grunty]

Or perhaps by houses being built on what were reservoirs? Or by profits being put before maintenance? Thames Water loses enough water in leakages to supply the city of Leeds.

[mushroom25]

car washes generally recycle. modern houses with dish washers, washing machines, power showers, etc, do not.

[andy-hughes]

The shortage is cased by varying factors. The increasingly dry weather means that the ground is harder, and rainwater evaporates bfore it can sink in and replenish the underground water table. Drier weather means more evaporation from reservoirs and less refil, but the worst culprits are the water companies themselves who have wilfully slashed their repair and replacement programmes to maintain profits, at the expense of the public who already owned the companies as utilities, and now have to pay for them all over again as private profit-making concerns. Imoral of the Tories to privatise public utlities - doubly imoral of Labour not to re-nationalise them.

[newtron]

Industrial and agrcultural water uses greatly outweigh domestic water use of any type. I don't know the exact situation here in the UK, but in the southwestern US, large quantities of water are wasted maintaining golf courses in the desert. Fortunately, many of them are starting to use effluent water. There is a lot more precipitation here, so I don't know how much water golf courses here use.

Grunty, what do you mean by "houses built on what were reservoirs"? Are you suggesting that houses are blocking access to pump water from an underlaying aquifer, or that groundwater recharge (infiltration) is decreased by asphault and houses?

[Grunty]

newtron - I don't have the technical knowledge to even consider the possible causes that you quote. However, there has been much debate in recent years about reservoirs being sold off for housing. On one hand, it is said that the reservoirs were required for water shortage and now there is less capacity. The privatised water companies respond that the reservoirs sold in this way have not been important ones. When such a conflict occurs, I am in the habit of reading both versions of events and wondering which is likely to be correct, having regard to any other considerations, such as the need to make a profit.

[Grunty]

Sorry, shortage should read storage.