Reservoir Levels rapid Changes

[Ferdinand]

First look I have had at any rates of change.

 

This was United Utilities in Cumbria a week ago - going down by 4-9% of total volume in a week, and a hosepipe ban about to arrive.

 

Ouch. One can understand why.

 

 

https://www.unitedutilities.com/help-and-support/your-water-supply/reservoir-levels/

[Hecateh]

You can walk round the old village at Derwent/Ladybower.  Last did that in the early 80's             

[Ferdinand]

4 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

You can walk round the old village at Derwent/Ladybower.  Last did that in the early 80's             

 

Any photos?

[Cpd]

3 minutes ago, Hecateh said:

You can walk round the old village at Derwent/Ladybower.  Last did that in the early 80's             

Have photos of me and my grandad walking round there at that time..... long time ago. 

[Ferdinand]

3 minutes ago, Cpd said:

Have photos of me and my grandad walking round there at that time..... long time ago. 

 

Thanks, but I was wondering about 2018.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Ferdinand

[Hecateh]

Sorry - I exaggerated - someone must have posted an old photo.  This is the most recent comment on the site

Quote

I was out on the 22nd July and the only thing starting to show on the Derwent village site is the rubble where the old post office was. The water has receded, but it will be some time before the remains to the church, Derwent Hall, the bridges and the school further down start to show.

 

[jamieled]

It's interesting to see where different water companies sit on the hosepipe ban problem. Some definitely see it as a political problem whereas others just see it as good practice.  It seems to have been received OK in NI.

In NE Scotland, river flows we might only expect to see for a day or two a year have been persistent for over a month. The picture below shows the River Spey which has recorded some of it's lowest levels.

It makes life as a hydrologist a bit more interesting!

[Ferdinand]

I think there is a bit of virtue signalling and PR involved, but it saves I think around 1%. Still worth having.

 

Here is a vid of Ladybower in wetter times last year - by Dean Read of peakroutes.com . One of my favourite bike routes when extended a little.

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

The problem is we have no concept in this country on how to conserve water

go and live in Australia for a year and you will look at things a bit differently 

 

HOSE PIPE BAN. you shouldn’t be using it to water your bloody garden in the first place

put every house on a meter and I bet people change. 

 

 

[PeterW]

5 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

 HOSE PIPE BAN. you shouldn’t be using it to water your bloody garden in the first place

put every house on a meter and I bet people change. 

 

 

Probably not .... it’s too cheap !! If I used 500 litres a day for a month that is £40 of water to water say £1000 of plants then it’s not costing much at all - and that’s metered water. We have no concept of not opening a tap and water coming out in the UK and tbh I read something last week about the pipe losses accounting for some ridiculous percentage of “usage” in the UK. 

 

We haven’t invested in the core reservoir and filtration infrastructure for decades and usage is on the rise and the system can’t cope. We need to stop paying £bn dividends to shareholders and start investing that in the infrastructure ..! 

[jamieled]

8 minutes ago, Ferdinand said:

I think there is a bit of virtue signalling and PR involved, but it saves I think around 1%. Still worth having.

 

It also usually involves more than just a reduction in garden hosepipe usage so you can often get a bit more saving. We work on the basis of about a 5% reduction. UU are one of the worst offenders for leakage I think which usually dwarfs any demand saving (but as you say, still worth doing).

[newhome]

1 minute ago, PeterW said:

We haven’t invested in the core reservoir and filtration infrastructure for decades and usage is on the rise and the system can’t cope. We need to stop paying £bn dividends to shareholders and start investing that in the infrastructure ..! 

 

We don't invest in infrastructure anywhere. Schools, doctors, hospitals and the like are all at creaking point. 

[jamieled]

Given that hosepipe bans don't happen regularly and we rarely have water shortages I don't see the infrastructure in as bad a state as elsewhere. The investment in existing infrastructure does happen for reservoirs as there's no choice given the failure consequences.

As for leakage, the only way this will improve is if water bills skyrocket as the present setup protects shareholder returns.

[daiking]

I’m going to sit my kids down and tell them  that because the elderly and the boomers spunked away everything that had, they’ve left us a legacy of deteriorating national infrastructure. So, although they live in a place that is depressingly wet for 99% of their lives they will no longer be able to play with water during the best summer holiday weather they will have in their childhood. 

 

Many thanks.

[newhome]

I think I’d be more worried about them not being able to access a doctor when needed than splashing round in some water TBH ... 

 

 

[billt]

1 hour ago, daiking said:

I’m going to sit my kids down and tell them  that because the elderly and the boomers spunked away everything that had, they’ve left us a legacy of deteriorating national infrastructure.

 

Presumably that's meant to be a joke, but it looks suspiciously as though you are being gratuitously offensive.

[newhome]

10 minutes ago, daiking said:

Ironically, the one that the elderly and the luckiest generation desperately need as they didn’t spunk their luck on healthy lifestyles either.

 

What an incredibly judgmental and sweeping statement. I can think of many many elderly people who have never led an unhealthy lifestyle.

 

Back in the day when my parents (for example) bought their house life was tough. They didn’t have endless possessions or go on expensive holidays because they simply couldn’t afford it. In contrast these days everyone wants possessions, foreign holidays, vehicles etc without having to go without and save up for them. There are go fund me appeals for people to have their debts paid or to buy them something for no reason other than they see it as their right to live as they want. You can’t blame the elderly for the way society is today. 

 

And if you feel things are so wrong what are you doing to fix it? 

[Ferdinand]

 

This is a subject where I have not seen *that* much data.

 

There is this page from the EU, (eg below) which illustrates the thinness of some of the information. The main thing I draw is that the stats seem to illustrate the impact of external factors, such as population density and whether the Rhine/Danube runs through your country, almost as much as they show information about water use / abstraction.

 

Why is water consumption in Belgium so low?

 

I do know:

 

- UK water meters are at about 50% of households.

- UK water bills rose significantly in 1990-1995 to drive heavy investment, less quickly for the next 15 years, and have fallen recently in real terms. All data from an OFWAT report here.

 

I am not clear about:

 

- Current versus previous investment. Investment by water companies since 1990 has been £130bn, which is I think likely to be slanted to underground and water quality.

- I am not clear how that compares with previous investment in eg all those reservoirs in the earlier period (to 1950, or is 1980 a better dividing point)?.

 

I would love to see some data about restrictions imposed on domestic consumption. My sneaking suspicion is that there are fewer of them now, in the period 2000-2015 compared to say 1970-1985, say.

 

I think that like energy saving, the legacy housing stock is a key question ... all the building regs in the world are of limited impact when we only build 0.5-1.0% of new stock each year.

 

I think that, again following energy saving, there is probably more utility to be gained by reduction and demand management rather than building shiny new anything.

 

I would hate to try and get a big new reservoir through the current Planning System. 

 

I wonder if we need to start disconnecting larger houses from the sewerage system? 

 

Ferdinand

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Ferdinand

[daiking]

24 minutes ago, newhome said:

 

What an incredibly judgmental and sweeping statement. I can think of many many elderly people who have never led an unhealthy lifestyle.

 

Back in the day when my parents (for example) bought their house life was tough. They didn’t have endless possessions or go on expensive holidays because they simply couldn’t afford it. In contrast these days everyone wants possessions, foreign holidays, vehicles etc without having to go without and save up for them. There are go fund me appeals for people to have their debts paid or to buy them something for no reason other than they see it as their right to live as they want. You can’t blame the elderly for the way society is today. 

 

And if you feel things are so wrong what are you doing to fix it? 

 

Oh look, it’s the sweeping generalisation that is the “wasting your money on smashed avocado toast” assertion .

 

Exactly who was it that dismantled the UK economy turning it into a service based consumptive economy? Without the avocado toast and the soya lattes we’d be in REAL trouble...

 

As it happens, I work in “environmental remediation” and I try to make most of my individual decisions with some thought to how it effects things outside my immediate benefit. Which is all I can ask for.

Edited August 2, 2018 by daiking

[newhome]

9 minutes ago, daiking said:

As it happens, I work in “environmental remediation” and I try to make most of my individual decisions with some thought to how it effects things outside my immediate benefit. Which is all I can ask for.

 

 

Then you won’t mind explaining to your kids why they can’t use water to play with which is where this first started.

 

 

[Declan52]

13 minutes ago, daiking said:

 

Oh look, it’s the sweeping generalisation that is the “wasting your money on smashed avocado toast” assertion .

 

Exactly who was it that dismantled the UK economy turning it into a service based consumptive economy? Without the avocado toast and the soya lattes we’d be in REAL trouble...

 

As it happens, I work in “environmental remediation” and I try to make most of my individual decisions with some thought to how it effects things outside my immediate benefit. Which is all I can ask for.

I like avocado and toast but not a fan of lattes or coffee in general to be honest. 

[Temp]

Our house in Belgium had an underground rainwater tank. It was built as part of the krup kelder a 3ft deep cellar just used for services. Not sure how many others had smilar

[Ferdinand]

22 minutes ago, daiking said:

Exactly who was it that dismantled the UK economy turning it into a service based consumptive economy?

 

I would say history and the developing world lifting itself out of poverty over the last half century.

 

Making my own sweeping statements ?, as far as I am aware every country in Western Europe (except possibly one or two outliers) has a service sector which is more than 70% of the economy. If you compare UK / France / Germany, the main differences are that Germany has a bit more manufacturing (27% vs 21%), we have more higher value services (eg Golden Circle Law Firms, Finance, International Architects), and France maintains a very pleasant agricultural museum and a government owned manufacturing sector. Services are within 1% of each other at 78-79% for all three.

 

F+G also *may* have tradtionally had more local retail services than UK since say 1990 (eg Monsieur Le Boulanger and German Sundays), but I am not sure if that is the case any more. We are ahead with % of online sales, but I would say that is just a matter of a few years before it is ubiquitous.

 

F

 

Edited August 2, 2018 by Ferdinand

[ProDave]

11 hours ago, Hecateh said:

You can walk round the old village at Derwent/Ladybower.  Last did that in the early 80's             

Up here there is a remote hunting lodge that was abandoned for a reservoir project.  Embarrassingly, someone got their surveying wrong, and even when full the water level never actually quite reaches the lodge.

[daiking]

@Ferdinand

 

On your first post is there a breakdown of figures to discriminate between residential and industry demands? And whilst £130bn sounds a lot, it’s not a lot per person per year.

 

On the second point, I’m not making a judgement about the make up of the economy, just making a judgement about those who say that the young should sit at home eating beans on toast for the rest of their lives when the formation of the economy demands they go out and spend their money because otherwise the wheels fall off. 

 

Cant remember where but was recently reading how Europe tends to be around 60% consumption whereas we are fast heading toward the 70% of the US economy. Not sure that’s a good thing, long term.

Edited August 2, 2018 by Nickfromwales
possibly offensive comment removed.