A Water Use Survey

Abstract

Ihave been invited this afternoon to initiate a discussion upon the water problem in Great Britain by stating the case for a water use survey. The presentation of this case will, I hope, conveniently introduce the wider aspects of the situation that we face with regard to water?paradoxically the only raw material with which the country is really well endowed. But although it is self-replenishing, water cannot be regarded as inexhaustible. As local demand begins to outstrip local supplies the community increasingly comes to realize its dependence upon water and on the need for its careful conservation. The water problem in Great Britain is a subject which is particularly amenable to a geographical approach: for it calls for an appreciation of geological structures, morphological features and climatic conditions, which must then be taken into consideration with the distribution of population, land use, and industrial and agricultural techniques. In short, a study of man in relationship to his environment with particular reference to one chosen commodity. An organized community needs water for a wide variety of purposes. Water is required for transportation and for power, for domestic purposes and the disposal of waste products, for agricultural and industrial activities, and for recreation.1 The uses overlap, sometimes supplementing and sometimes conflicting with each other. Transportation of waste may preclude recreational use. Power production may impede navigation. A reservoir, on the other hand, may create recreational facilities. In all cases, however, the conservation of the available supplies and the maintenance of a steady flow of water is desirable for the continuance of the use. A broad divi? sion may be made in these categories between, on the one hand, those uses such as transportation, power production and recreational facilities where little water is actually consumed and where the community takes advantage of opportunities pro? vided by Nature?here rivers, streams and lakes are harnessed and utilized, and man goes to the water; and on the other hand, in the remaining categories of domestic, industrial and agricultural usage, in which water is abstracted from its natural environment and conveyed to some other point before being employed. And in its use most, if not all, is often consumed. The increasing population of Great Britain and its rising standard of living have produced problems in both of these major groups. For although the country as a whole has a relative abundance of precipitation, the majority of the population actually lives where the rainfall is lowest and the surface water least. In relationship to land area Britain undoubtedly has some of the highest water consumption figures for the whole world. The consequence of this state of affairs has been an increasing pollution of many lowland rivers and a rising consumption of water abstracted from both overground and underground sources. The situation has now been reached where many areas in south-east Britain must needs look elsewhere than their immediate locality for water supplies in normal years, quite apart from the special difficulties created by drought conditions. It is in the problem of water abstraction that most public concern has been expressed. The explanation is not far to seek. There has been a steady and, more recently, a dramatic increase in water consumption over the last century. The domestic user of 1830 consumed less than four gallons per person per day. In 1958