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Water treatment plants will have to run at peak
rates for longer
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Pipework replacement needs to be increased
significantly
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More investment required in sustainable urban
drainage
Britain’s water industry will face higher costs for
treating and managing water supplies due to the increasing
occurrence of drought and flood resulting from climate change,
according to a new report from the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers.
As summers become longer and hotter, water treatment
plants will be required to run at peak flow rates for longer,
raising maintenance and running costs as well as energy
consumption. The increased water flow will also require more
chemicals to clean the water faster.
The Institution said in the report “Water: Drought
and Flood” that companies will also need to increase the pace of
pipework replacement significantly, which will be expensive but
is becoming essential.
To combat flooding, particularly after long periods
of dry, hot weather, greater investment will be required in
drainage systems in urban areas including more sustainable
options such parkland, ponds and ditches.
“We need to make people aware of the value of water
as a resource. Consumers need to understand the challenges of
managing water in more extreme environments and the increased
costs that water companies will face running treatment plants at
higher flow rates as well as reducing leakage,” said Dr Jenifer
Baxter, Head of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers and the report’s lead author.
“Sustainable drainage and water recycling systems
along with reducing water use are all part of the solution of
helping us adapt to climate change.”
Most Government policies, strategies and reports do
not consider hot, dry weather together with flooding – looking at
one or the other – and a new water infrastructure sustainability
plan is needed which combines drought and flood.
The Institution supports a “systems thinking”
approach to water management as highlighted in regulator Ofwat’s
report, “Resilience in the Round", which was released in 2017 and
identifies the linkages between many aspects of urban life –
physical, social and economic.
The Ofwat report brings together the challenges of
unexpected events, such as superstorms, heatwaves and blackouts,
but also infrastructure, and an ageing and growing
population.
The Institution made the following
recommendations in the report:
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All major UK cities to publish research on
what their infrastructure needs will be in relation to
water. Water is a limited resource –
infrastructure for new-build homes and businesses should be
designed and developed with increased extreme weather in mind.
This should include sustainable urban drainage and grey water
recycling in new-build properties, reducing the burden on water
treatment works in the summer months and helping to manage
extreme rainfall events.
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UK Government should run a public awareness
campaign on the value of water and consequences of our changing
climate. This could include what householders and
businesses need to do to build resilience into their
properties, in order to mitigate the impacts from poor drainage
when periods of dry weather end this year, and in future
years.
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The water industry, with the support of
Water UK and the National Infrastructure Committee, creates a
forum of water-intensive industries and the water companies
create a water infrastructure sustainability plan for UK
industry that combines drought and flood. It is
crucial that supply exceeds demand not just by ever increasing
production, but instead by mitigating use in a similar way to
the electricity grid which has clients on interruptible
contracts.
