[Closed] Drought my a**e!

[i]Personally I'm all for drought and global warming. I bloody hate rain and mud. [/i]

Move to the South East then. Them buggers are always complaining about how little water they've got.

I'm still a wee bit confused as to why they are not building more reservoirs - plenty of water about, we just let the rivers flood and it goes into the oceans.

Seriously - population increase = more demand for water so build reservoirs inline with projected population increase? Better network to distribute water, and more efficient use of it - job done.

OK the water table has shrunk, so just capture more of the stuff coming out of the sky and running straight off the land into rivers. I honestly don't see why we should have hosepipe bans and not have these linked to reduced bills, after all the water companies are not providing the service we are paying for...

http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/

Looking at the England South area, which has been the focus of the current drought, this month is one of only three in the last two years which has seen significantly above average rainfall.

As can be seen from the chart below, the majority of other months during that time have seen below average rainfall.

Monthly rainfall anomalies for region England south for the last 3 years. 13 of the last 24 months have seen less than 75% of average rainfall, and 6 months have seen less than 50%. Only 2 months - June 2011 and August 2010, have been significantly wetter than average.

Trevor Bishop, Head of Water Resources at the Environment Agency, said: “it’s going to take more than a week or two of rain to undo the effects of nearly two years of below average rainfall.

“More rain now will really help us get through the summer, and is good for the environment, farmers and gardeners, but it’s very unlikely to be enough to recharge the groundwater.”

[img] [/img]

need to amend their average then. and provide better infrastructure to take account of it.

you cant run historical averages for ever, and keep saying you are below it.

otherwise average price of a car is what about £500?

two please.

The thing is, we 're an island so much of our water runs out to sea in small rivers & streams instead of forming large rivers which can be either dammed or be extracted. Damming small valleys is expensive.

We need to move water around - there are canals between London & Llangollen & Lancaster which could be used if a few pumping stations were installed. It's not happened, though.

tracknicko - Member

need to amend their average then. and provide better infrastructure to take account of it.

you cant run historical averages for ever, and keep saying you are below it.

otherwise average price of a car is what about £500?

two please.

weather types average over 30 year time periods so short term fluctuations can be put in the context of recent climatological averages, rather than using a fixed average climate dating back to the formation of the planet's tertiary atmosphere.

We are actually due a switch from the current set of averages 1971-2000 to 1981-2010 time periods any time now.....(it takes a few years to do all the quality control number crunching checks though to quadruple check that the dataset is robust).

Switching from a 1971-2000 dataset to a 1981-2010 dataset may make the current drought stand out more though, as the 1976 drought will then have dropped out of the 30year average.

Canals normally need a water source to supply them such as a river also it's not down to the Environment Agency to build more reservoirs thats down to the water company's.

To build a reservoir you have to flood someones land which isn't going to go down well with people be it the land owner who is forced to sell his land or surrounding community's.

It'll never fill up the aquifers if it keeps going sideways at that speed!!!

I honestly don't see why we should have hosepipe bans and not have these linked to reduced bills, after all the water companies are not providing the service we are paying for...

Well if you have a meter like most people (I understand) then less use will give you a lower bill. That said I agree the water cos are guilty of underinvestment, OFWAT is guilty of being too weak, successive govts are guilty of not modifying building and planning regs to reduce hard surfacing and so on.

All I wanted to do this weekend was to go for a nice ride in the Chilterns and admire some bluebells and now I am going to have to get the dreaded turbo out!

Please can we go back to February/March weather?

I'm still a wee bit confused as to why they are not building more reservoirs - plenty of water about, we just let the rivers flood and it goes into the oceans.

Thames Water having been trying to build a new reservoir for going on 40 years...everybody wants modern infrastructure, but nobody wants the disruption of building it. So we're stuck with the Victorian Water supply system.

If they stopped the leaks it would help - and if people did not have enormous water consumption.
Water meters in all affected ares with a progressive tariff - punitive at higher usage levels?

Personally I think its got bugger all to do with the amount of rain.

The south east is over populated, therefore too much water is being removed from the environment. You have to take a longer look at the environmental impact of building housing, more people taking more water.

We will see streams drying up and the water table dropping but then there will be a knock on environmental impact. Species migration or extinction. The only way for the the south east to survive it current growth and remedy the growth over the last 20 ears is to invest in desallination.

Oh and get thames Water to fix the bloody leaks.

[url= http://blackswhitewash.com/2012/04/26/bbc-props-up-the-orrible-drought-fantasy/ ]Here's[/url] some more data to confuse you. It's all part of the global warming brainwashing.

I think the water co's do a good job really - about 50p a day for water and the same for sewerage and a service that is pretty reliable in the main (excuse pun).

I'd rather have a hosepipe ban every so often than the flipping gas and elec prices and petrol prices.

Perhaps with a growing population we need to think more about how we value water (and waste water)

FunkyDunc - Member

"No, I don't get it either."

Read above, its all to do with the water table and how it is way too low. All this rain is just running off in to the rivers and oceans and doesnt soak in to the ground. It takes time to fill up the water table.

Yep, I get that bit.

The bit I don't get is that apart from 2 weeks of sunshine, it appears to have lagged it down unremittingly in Tod every single sodding day since June 2009.
Selective memory is a terrible curse.

Here's some more data to confuse you. It's all part of the global warming brainwashing.

Seriously? That bloke is more selective and ignorant than most I've seen. If you take that as 'fact' or 'news' then you really shouldn't stray from the Daily Mail.

Same annual rainfall, but in shorter, heavier rainfalls. So, you get the same average rainfall, but if it comes in 10 storms we're knackered for all the real reasons like runoff. Reservoirs can be full, but they get used. If there isn't the water to fill them then we run out. You can't just drain the rivers either - there is a maximum extraction permitted to retain the wildlife.

Compulsory metering methinks. Might make some people stop wasting so much through the rigmarole of modern living.

It is a finite resource after all.

Back to the OP - Drought my A**e.
Break out the rescue boats.

rogerthecat - Member
Back to the OP - Drought my A**e.
Break out the rescue boats.

Indeed - 5 months of rainfall over this weekend I believe?

Notwithstanding that, where I live Thames Water have maintained thier hosepipe ban on the basis they need to save all this water in case of another dry winter next year. That statement was made a week after they let 3m litres of water flood into the London tube network after a pipe burst.

:-/

It is a finite resource after all.

i've got a builder's bucket/tub thing at the bottom of my 'garden', it's about 400mm deep, i've emptied it 4 times since the start of the year.

even ignoring overflow and evaporation, i make that 1.6metres of rainfall.

1.6...

metres.

drought my arse, if we're running short it's because we're doing something wrong, it's not because there isn't enough rain.

(i got soaked on my way to work, soaked on my way home, soaked on my way to the bank, soaked on my way home, i've run out of dry socks and it's still chuffing raining!)

Absolutely gash weather here. Will my new
road bike work in the rain?

Mike-E - Member
Absolutely gash weather here. Will my new
road bike work in the rain?

Absolutely not.

ahwiles - Member

It is a finite resource after all.

i've got a builder's bucket/tub thing at the bottom of my 'garden', it's about 400mm deep, i've emptied it 4 times since the start of the year.

even ignoring overflow and evaporation, i make that 1.6metres of rainfall.

1.6...

metres.

drought my arse, if we're running short it's because we're doing something wrong, it's not because there isn't enough rain.

(i got soaked on my way to work, soaked on my way home, soaked on my way to the bank, soaked on my way home, i've run out of dry socks and it's still chuffing raining!)

Ah but did you take advantage and walk around with your mouth open or are you relying on your local water company to send you some to drink via a tap at home? The difference between the two = implied water shortage.

Now it's been 30 years but I'm pretty sure when I was at school that a bucket is no way to measure rainfall as the opening is too big. So it'll be safe to say your measurement is miles off.

Drac, that one needs more of an explanation.

did you take advantage and walk around with your mouth open or are you relying on your local water company to send you some to drink via a tap at home?

i pay yorkshire water about £1/day for lovely clean drinkable water to be pumped directly into my kitchen. it'd be cheap at twice the price.

I'd have to read up on it and I can't be arsed but a bucket is not used to measure the monthly rainfall as it catches more than there falls due to the width of it's mouth. Something to do with how the rainfalls but as I say it was 30 years ago and I probably was too busy staring out of the window or drawing pictures of fighter planes.

According to the nice man on Radio 4 it would need to rain from now to December, without let up, to avert another drought.

and from the bbc today

Mike Hegarty, operations director for Sutton and East Surrey Water, said
"Normally winter rainfall recharges the aquifers. The recharge is unprecedented and is the highest increase in water levels ever recorded in our area at this time of year."

is it time to sort out leaks in the system now?

or is that not a priority now the aquifers are charged back up?