Why we have hosepipe bans and yet water leaks?
The quantity of rain packed in to a standard British summer has long been something of a joke, but its absence is, in point of fact, no laughing matter at all.
While some people may well have enjoyed baking in the summer sun, others, especially environmentalists, farmers and gardeners, have long been getting anxious. Northern Ireland has already imposed a hosepipe ban and there is a distinct possibility that other parts of the UK will (be forced to) follow suit. The irony is that at the same time as we are being urged (or forced) to save water, it is being lost through wide-scale leaks.
Creaking infrastructure is leaking infrastructure
Some of the mains water pipes in the UK are more than 150 years old. While these are the exception rather than the rule, pipes which are more than 50 years old are still fairly commonplace. This fact should go a long way to explaining why the UK’s infrastructure is notorious for leaks and, in turn, raises the question of why the UK is still using such antiquated equipment at all, let alone for such a crucial service.
Piping and privatisation
The water system in England and Wales was privatised in 1989 (Scotland was excluded from the deal), which means that for the last (almost) 30 years, responsibility for updating the pipes has rested with various private companies. While it may be tempting to point the finger at these companies and accuse them of putting shareholder dividends before the environment (and there may be a certain degree of truth in this) the reality is that there are a number of technical challenges involved in fixing the piping system.
To begin with, there is about 342,877 kilometres of it in England and Wales alone. That’s enough to go around the circumference of the Earth more than 8 times. What’s more, the historical records of where, exactly, these pipes are located have been demonstrated to be somewhat inaccurate. In other words, there have been times when engineers have gone to fix pipes only to discover that they weren’t where they were supposed to be. To this can be added the fact that it’s not necessarily easy to access the pipes, not even in urban locations. Mains water was introduced to the UK before other key services such as gas, electric, telephone and, of course, broadband internet, which means that getting to the water pipes can involve have to navigate around other essential services and it also often involves digging up roads, which does not tend to go down well with motorists.
Technology to the rescue
Although the fact of the matter is that sooner or later, the UK’s mains water infrastructure is going to need a major overhaul (and sooner would be better than later), for practical reasons it makes sense to focus on the areas which are leaking now and fix them first. Again, finding a leak is not as easy as it sounds. Using current technology, water engineers use “listening sticks” to listen (literally) to the sound of the water as it flows to see if it tallies with what they think it should be. Fortunately, there are now major efforts underway to find an approach more in line with what you would expect in the 21st century, for example there are trials of using infrared sensors attached to drones to detect the exact location of leaks.
Lifestyles also need to change
It’s entirely understandable why people in the UK have long taken water for granted, but as the population grows resources need to be used more efficiently, which is to say responsibly. Water companies, for example, are not responsible for the fact that people put off fixing leaking taps or don’t get around to buying water butts for their garden or that they keep the taps running while cleaning their teeth. If the UK is to have a sustainable water supply over the long term, it needs to be respected and managed in a collaborative effort.
