Do we need another ‘Minister for Drought’ ?

 On present evidence, yes…..

Those of us old enough to remember the excesses of the 1970s will recall one of the most notable of its meteorological ones - the ‘great drought’ of ’76.

Contrary to popular belief, this was more extensive and prolonged than the current one, with both a dry autumn and winter in 1975 and a dry spring in 1976 contributing.  In June 1976 there was actually a period of two weeks where maximum temperatures in southern England never fell below 32oC. The prolonged nature of this heatwave, and the following dry, hot period which continued until early August, resulted in severe consequences for crops and domestic  water supplies, with taps in some areas actually running dry. This culminated in the Drought Act being rushed through parliament on 5^th August. This legislation  included more draconian water restrictions, installation of standpipes, water bowsers, etc.

….and the appointment of Dennis Howells as ‘Minister for Drought’ by the then PM, Jim Callaghan.

Dennis took his role very seriously from the start, and amongst other things, threatened water rationing lasting until December of that year (see any parallels with 2022, anyone ?).

This blatant interference with their remit obviously nettled the ‘Weather Gods’, because – lo and behold - the following week it poured… for 10 whole days.

Howells was promptly re-christened ‘Minister for Floods’ and sank (fortunately not literally !) into obscurity quite quickly thereafter amidst the cleaning up operations following the widespread flooding.

Our climate certainly does have ‘form’ for extreme behaviour, and we should remember this when designating the current series of heatwaves as unprecedented. We have actually been here before, albeit not with such extreme temperatures as we saw in July.

Should Boris therefore take a leaf out of Callaghan’s book and appoint a Minister for Drought - while he still can ?

It’s unlikely to do any harm, and might just awake the ‘Weather Gods’ once again from their current and protracted slumbers.

Who in their right minds, however, would willingly take on the task – and the responsibility, in the current political vacuum ?

Boris could, of course, take on the role himself, now he has returned from his extended holiday. He might well be resistant to this, however, given the current caretaker status of his own role and the apparent unwillingness of anyone in Whitehall to do anything until the leadership election is resolved.

Alternatively, to make things a bit more interesting, as a final bit of Boris 'mischief' and one of his last directives as PM, he could assign the job to each of the remaining Tory leadership hopefuls as a test of their effectiveness at 'making things happen'. The Tory faithful could then assess their respective performance and use it to determine who to vote for on the basis of who managed to make it rain first….

Joking apart, though, we do need to think outside the box here regarding our future water supplies.

A quick look at today’s weather charts shows yet again no sign of rain south of the Humber for the foreseeable future. Even if the weather does relent within the next couple of weeks, and we revert to ‘average’ rainfall levels throughout the autumn and winter, we will still be short of water in the whole of Southern England for some time to come, given the deficit that has built up over the last year. Recent estimates by the water authorities are than 3 months virtually continuous rain would be needed just to fill up our reservoirs and the water tables to pre 2021 levels. 

Whatever one's interpretation of the causes of the current phase of rapid inter-glacial planetary warming, our UK climate is becoming warmer...and drier (see recent blog for more in depth analysis). This change applies to all seasons of the year, not just summer. We should therefore expect periodic droughts to recur with increasing frequency in the years to come, which will result in chronic water shortages if we leave things as they are.

One possibility that we now need to consider urgently is a national water grid, similar to our electricity and gas grids. This possibility has already been considered by government but so far no progress has been made, largely on cost grounds. Large scale infrastructure projects such as this have always fallen prey to the short-termism that is rife within politics in a modern democracy, and this one is no exception.

Despite the parched nature of the Midlands and South, there is still plenty of water in our northern UK reservoirs which could be piped southwards at times of increased need if the appropriate infrastructure were in place. The rainfall pattern has become  heavily skewed towards northern regions in recent years - the  northwest of Scotland, for example, has had up to 250mm of rain during the current 'drought', while some areas of the South East have had virtually nothing. 

The bulk of our population on the other hand is largely concentrated in the south eastern corner of our island, so it would make eminent sense to pipe water from North to South. If the Russians can pipe gas thousands of miles from the Siberian gas fields to Western Europe to satisfy Germany's needs, we Brits should be capable of  coming up with a similar solution for our own water supplies, given the much shorter distances involved. It’s a shame that the effort recently put into constructing Nordstream 2, which has never actually been used in anger, and is now more or less redundant due to the political situation, could not have been redirected towards building a UK water grid. 

How should we go about funding this project ? 

Many billions have already been earmarked for HS2, which has barely started construction, and is not expected to be fully 'on stream' until the early 2030s (and that's without the inevitable delays and cost-overruns that will occur). This project has been described both as a 'white elephant' and a 'monument to political vanity', with its sole apparent benefit being to cut the journey time from London to Birmingham by half an hour or so. By the time it comes on stream, rail fares will have risen so far that the 'man in the street' would need a small mortgage to afford to travel on it, so it's likely that it will be under-subscribed from the start, and it may well turn out to be a chronic loss-maker. 

Could some of the funds for this (at best questionable) enterprise not be redirected to ensuring our water supplies for future generations ? Simply putting HS2 on hold for the next few years while the main arterial north-south pipeline is built could achieve something really useful, both for us and future generations, who may otherwise be faced with perpetual water shortages as a result of our vanity. We could then re-assess the fate of HS2 and decide whether the concept had any real value for the 2030s, particularly in the light of the then fast approaching 'net zero by 2050' deadline.

Much has been made in the press during the recent hot spell about the contribution of water leakage to our deficit. In my view this is a side-issue. There will always be a measure of leakage in any water supply system. This is virtually impossible to avoid and increasingly expensive to remedy given the inaccessibility of the offending, and often elderly, pipework. Obviously acute and costly leakage events such as burst water mains should of course be promptly remedied, but chasing every last small leak just isn't practicable - or an efficient way of boosting our supplies. A candid interview with any water supply company executive will confirm this.

The main issue for the UK is how well we capture such rain that does fall. An outside observer might be forgiven for describing current arrangements as 'primitive' or even  'lamentable'. Given the size and distribution of our population, we simply don't have enough reservoir capacity in the overpopulated South to tide us over during periodic dry periods now, let alone in a much drier future. We are indeed still favoured in these islands with copious supplies of rain - witness the periodic winter floods of recent years which have inundated peoples' homes repeatedly in flood-prone areas, where new houses should never have been built in the first place. 

Logic therefore dictates that we should direct our efforts towards capturing much more of this surplus water, in this case for a '(non)-rainy day', and this will require much more available storage capacity - and a grid to distribute its contents to where it's most needed.

We will need to rethink our attitude to creating new reservoirs and pipelines if we are to keep the taps flowing in future...

Purified water is as essential to modern life as power or gas supplies - and far more important than enhanced personal travel. We would all do well to remember that when setting our spending priorities. 

Viv

Update 18.8.22: Well...it's arrived, and apparently without the attentions of either Tory leadership candidate (although there were unsubstantiated reports earlier this week of Rishi Sunak being seen waving a strange-looking stick about on his campaign trail)....Two inches of rain fell in ca 18hrs in the East Midlands yesterday, even more in some places, with the inevitable flash flooding.  The problem of course is that most of it will by now be in the river systems heading towards the sea, and there is enough power still left in the sun to dry the land out again quite quickly during the next dry spell. 

Perhaps we do still need another Minister for Drought.....a new ministerial role for Rishi, perhaps....?

In the circumstances, an appropriate exhortation to the weather Gods might be:

"More rain, please, we're British !"

Viv 

Update 7.9.22: Well, it's returned at last...and with a vengeance in some places. Despite this, we still have a drought situation, given the very low levels of the water table and reservoirs persisting in some areas. Hold up on using the hosepipe for a bit longer.....if you need to wash the car, why not let the clouds do it for you ? You probably won't need to wait that long......

Version Date: 7.9.22