Despite being known for its soggy weather, the UK is currently experiencing a bad drought. The past five months have seen the least rainfall in autumn and winter since records began. Even in wetter times, rainfall isn't consistent across the whole country, with parts of Wales receiving twenty times as much annual rainfall as the driest areas of eastern England.

A "drought summit" held this week in London reopened the discussion of a controversial redistribution solution that would pump water from Wales, the north of England and Scotland to south and southeast England.

"You're spreading the risks. No drought is the same in all parts of the country, so it gives you the opportunity to move water even during the drought from areas which have water to areas that don't," said Chris Binnie, from the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

Moving millions of liters

London's mayor, Boris Johnson, has championed the idea as the "obvious" answer to the UK's water problems.

Binnie says it's time to fast track a scheme to connect the Severn River in Wales and the Thames River, which flows down to London.

"The Thames is very heavily exploited, whereas the Severn is much less," he said. "I did an analysis some years ago showing that the risk of a drought in the Severn and Thames at the same time was relatively low. And we've got that situation at the moment where there is water in the Severn, but there is less in the southeast of England."

Using a combination of new pipelines and existing canals and reservoirs, the scheme could transfer around 200 million liters of water per day.

Regional water companies resistant

Small-scale water transfer systems already exist in the UK, notably from the Ely Ouse River near Cambridge to eastern England. But critics say any large-scale moving of water would be problematic.

"Certainly cost, and the fact that it is a fixed asset, which is relatively inflexible, is an issue," said Trevor Bishop, head of water resources at the Environment Agency, the body charged with implementing the government's environmental policy. "There are issues with how sustainable the resources that it comes from are - so say it came from the north, there's always a chance that it might be vulnerable to long-term droughts in the future; and also the environmental impacts."

The regional water companies that would have to build the infrastructure are also wary of creating a national water grid. Scottish Water says the idea is impractical. Welsh Water says the plan would require enormous investments in capacity and that its region doesn't have the water to spare anyway.

Jim Marshall from the water industry's umbrella group, Water UK, says there is already enough infrastructure and cooperation between companies to move water effectively around Britain.

"There may well be some need to develop some infrastructure to make those connections more robust or more resilient, perhaps," he said. "But that's very much a small-scale consideration compared to the concept of building four- or five-meter pipes several hundred miles."

No water companies have made new transfer schemes part of their strategic plans for water resources in the future. But a recent government report did say that "increasing interconnection in the UK's water supply system" was a key goal. For now, though, people are being asked to watch their water use.

Author: Robin Powell, London / hf
Editor: Simon Bone