The future of water supply in the Thames Gateway

After another wet winter, with rainfall in the south east in the first three months of this year well above the seasonal average, it’s easy to forget just how great the water supply challenge is that we’re facing as a result of climate change.

In twenty years time it is predicted that climate change will have reduced available water supply in the Thames region by 100 million litres a day. On top of this we also have to consider the extra demand for water caused by hotter and drier summers and the pressures of continued population growth in the South east.

In order to balance future water supply and demand extra capacity is being created across the Thames region. Plans to create a major new reservoir in Oxfordshire to store winter rainfall are underway and Thames Water also hopes to build a desalination plant in East London for use during periods of particular supply pressure. More locally, plans to create a new reservoir south of Darenth wood to cater for rising demand in this area are now being considered. Thames Water, with the involvement of the Environment Agency and the local authority, is also carrying out a Kent Thameside water cycle study looking at the impact of population growth on water supply and the sewerage network.

Creating new capacity is only part of the solution however. We also need to conserve resources more effectively through better leakage control and the use of more water efficient appliances in homes and commercial settings. To this end the Government is now looking at ways to make the Thames Gateway a ‘water neutral’ region by 2016 by making new developments more water efficient and retro-fitting existing properties.

Achieving this goal won’t be easy. We are a long way behind our European neighbours for instance when it comes to the sale and installation of water efficient appliances in our homes. Even getting hold of something as basic as a water efficient low flush toilet is far from easy. Many stores don’t stock them and those that do are asking three or four times the price of a standard toilet for them. It is a problem that ministers and the industry are going to have to look seriously at if we are to achieve the efficiency targets that we’ve set ourselves.