Reservoir levels post drought

Carsington looks to be 3-4m below it’s spring levels - can’t see it being long before it’s full though with the amount of rain we’ve recently had in Derbyshire!

Drought conditions still declared in some regions

Lots of reservoirs around South Wales are close to or actually full but the talk from the caving crowd is that the underground water level is still very low. Basically the recent rain has filled the visible stuff but the underlying water table is still very low.

Which regions still have droughts? I'd love to move there as I currently reside on the edge of the Lake District and I'm sick of the bloomin weather!!

Good point about the aquifers still being low. They do take a lot longer to recover.

I was informed by my dad that all the water companies are hiding water. Using all the water in very visible, oft visited, res’ first, making it appear that we had less water than we actually did.

I’m not entirely sure where he was going with this.

Carsington looks to be 3-4m below it’s spring levels – can’t see it being long before it’s full though with the amount of rain we’ve recently had in Derbyshire!

I was astonished how low it still looked on New Years Day* - I did wonder if the flow in the Derwent that they take it from was still too strong to pump it up.

*Though on New Years Day it did appear that the Gods had decided to fill it up on the one day, never seen the roads up there running with water and flooding like that!

Round here Grimwith is still looking very low, but Thruscross, Fewston, Swinsty and Lindley are all full. The hose pipe ban in Yorkshire was lifted just before Christmas.

It’s something I’d consider as part of a water management policy. Obviously amongst less conspiracy oriented factors like surface area, leakage / seepage. In late summer here in West Yorks some reservoirs were stupid low whereas others were high. The one where all the stupid dog shitting walkers go cos they don’t know any better was super low so mebbe your dad was onto something.

They keep some res topped up for operational reasons, be that re-routing supply or to protect the asset structure.

Don't forget the water you see is untreated, it is simply impounded/collected ready to be sent down the pipe to the water treatment works.

Anyone who thinks there's a huge secret stash of water deliberately hidden is deluded.

Thought they weren’t usually at max level until late spring, hence why the Dams raid was at the end of May?

I've a theory that in the North West a lot of the reservoirs are being kept at low level since the Whaley Bridge dam failure to keep others of similar vintage at lower structural loads. I'm not around them daily,  but when I have seen them in the last 3ish years, even when I'd expect to see them pretty much topped off, they are maybe only 80% full.

Would like to know if my idea is correct.

My local woods aren't as muddy as usual but muddier than last year, if that helps.

My local reservoir in Cornwall is about 60% full. Was something like 17% full at it's lowest. Think we're still in drought status.

Derwent reservoirs are about 85% full overall, with Derwent 100% and coming over the top at the weekend

https://www.s****er.co.uk/about-us/reservoir-levels/raw-water-storage-levels-02-january-2023/

I ride past a small hollow at the start ofy local route. It would be a semi permanent puddle - water in wet weather and just mud at other times. If we were lucky it would dry and crack occasionally. In 2018 it sees and cracked then turned into pure dust. Since then it never became a puddle and is now grass.

Another part of the route I've been riding since the 90s (and an ancient path) had some diversions around wet bits in winter. Then over the years the wet bits became permanent year round and the trail eventually diverted several meters to the south. In 2018 I was able to take the original line for the first time in 15 years. That line has stayed usable most of the time since.

So I think 2018 had a huge effect on ground water that we are still seeing.

Scammonden got very low this year. A couple of months ago it was probably less than 20%. Yesterday it was looking far fuller, over 75% at a guess.

Water companies drain aquifers rather than build new reservoirs. It’s way cheaper. They make a lot of cash for their directors bonuses and pay big dividends to shareholders. The water shortages we have are just due to lack of investment. It’s not rocket science building reservoirs, but fixing leaks and new construction would eat into the big payouts.

That's not really representative of what's going on. They were not allowed to build new impounding reservoirs for many years. Carsington Res is quite old now and is often the example of the last significant reservoir to be built.

The water supply issue is very complicated and you're completely ignoring factors such as rapidly increasing population, increased demand from agricultural and commercial sectors, industrial water abstraction directly from rivers, climate change disrupting established precipitation patterns etc. etc.

The utility companies are not charities and they do pay shareholders etc but this is not uncommon in the private sector. Another problem is that OFWAT are toothless and have no real power. The whole sector is a mess and it's not just simply send Derek out to fix a couple of leaking pipes

Yes I’m summarising and didn’t take the time to write a complete essay which maybe you would prefer.
Yes water companies do take a lot of water from rivers too. My point is that they Shouldn’t take so much water from natural resources they don’t control. They should be building reservoirs. I’m not going to discuss planning.
The rainfall in the UK is not falling and is likely to increase with higher temperatures. Many areas in this country are regularly flooded, leaks are common and often left …
You talk of rapid population growth and agriculture demand …is that really an unexpected shock or just another planning failure? you say the water companies are not charities (pleased you realised) no they are monopolists created by a stupid political mantra that privatisation is always the best. Monopolists want the price of the commodity they are selling to rise , they also like to convince the market of the scarcity of their product to keep the price high.

By the way the water companies do reward their investors rather well 😉. Severn Trent has risen 30% over the last 5 years and United Utilities by similar . Both pay annual dividends of around 4% too so some nice returns. Unfortunately Thames water is privately owned by sovereign wealth funds who know a good bargain when they see it.

I completely agree with you @Radioman. It's such a simple problem to solve, here's my 3 point plan to address it:

1 - we need to build giant buckets to capture the flood waters and then use giant robots, like the ones in that recent docudrama Pacific Rim, to move the captured flood water to the newly built giant reservoirs.

2 - send Derek, Tariq, Rachel and Martin round to fix the handful of leaks in the often antiquated water distribution systems

3 - have a word with Baby Jesus about the disrupted precipitation patterns across Western Europe due to the current and future impact of climate change

Job done

Anyway it’s nice to see water company ambassadors here!

Or maybe you’re trying to get a work experience placement with them.

I'm not, I'm far from it.

I partially agree with you on some issues but it really isn't that as simple as people make it out to be.

We need a lot of changes as it's bad now but in the near future it will get a lot worse due to the impact of CC, I'm talking the next 5-10 years not 2100. OFWAT needs more powers, the public need to be prepared for higher water bills for increased water security and of course the Govt is completely ignoring the problems as usual as the markets know best.

Water companies drain aquifers rather than build new reservoirs

To be fair they put a fair amount back in with all the random leaks they dont bother fixing.

It’s not rocket science building reservoirs

It is quite environmentally damaging sometimes though.

Plus:

NIMBYs - nobody wants one near them especially during the construction phase

Huge capital projects take decades to complete

Lack of truly long term strategic planning at Utility companies

££££

Thats what happens when the utilities are run for profit.

Why in times of drought don't they get the earth moving machines in these reservoirs & dig out all the silt that's been reducing the water capacity?

Suspect at those time, the capacity isn't the issue as there is no risk of it overflowing...if a company is run for profit then it won't be looking to make improvements if they aren't needed i.e. less profits returned as more money spent.

I was over at South West Water early December and the low reservoir levels and general water shortage was still a hot topic. Having said that, it's been raining constantly over Christmas, so they might have bounced back up by now.

It’s not rocket science building reservoirs

Panel engineers are about the most stringently regulated civil engineers and they are now all about 70 and due to retire. Reservoir works are a absolute pain in the arse.

It's not rockets science but it's not easy

It's
Ecology
Economy
Geology
Hydrology
Planning
Civil
Structural

In Scotland 10000cubic meters is a reservoir, that's 4 olympic swimming pools once it's that size it's a serious undertaking

In England it's still 25000 but I think that's about to drop down.

The water companies are a disaster but radioman you are talking absolute nonsense about how simple the problem is... 15% leakage is considered the break even point where financial benefit balances with maintenance costs.

Apparently Thames waters reservoirs are at 73% which is below average for this time of year (according to Thames).

https://www.thameswater.co.uk/about-us/performance/reservoir-levels-and-rainfall-figures

Here is there graph of rainfall- shows its still dryer overall (I imagine Dec and start of Jan has put a dent in that)

Pretty ludicrous they're not fuller after the amount of rain we've had.

Or shows how low they actually got...