England is likely to be officially declared in drought on Friday, a move that will allow water companies to impose tough restrictions on water use as temperatures remain high in parts of the UK.
Hose bans are likely to follow in areas that have not yet declared them, and people are being asked to conserve water by not washing their cars, using lawn sprinklers or filling large swimming pools.
Ministers will make the decision after a meeting on Friday morning of the National Drought Group, which will hear from water companies, agricultural leaders and conservation groups.
The greens and fairways of a golf course near New Romney, Kent, in south-east England’s driest July since 1935. Picture: Gareth Fuller/PA
If the drought is declared, water companies are expected to start implementing their drought plans and will no longer need permission from ministers to impose some restrictions on water use.
With temperatures likely to reach 36C in some places over the weekend, England is experiencing its driest nine-month spell since 1976. South-east England received less than 10% of its usual July rainfall, making it the driest July since 1935. Precipitation has been about 74% of its long-term average since last November.
Scientists said it was highly unlikely that “extreme” measures of the kind used in 1976 would be needed to deal with the heat wave. Pipelines and rationing, for many the key memories of 1976, were still “incredibly unlikely,” hydrologists said, even though reservoirs were at their lowest levels since current records began in 1990
Climate experts said the drought had been predicted for some time. Mike Rivington, senior scientist at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland, said: “The scale of heatwaves and droughts we are currently experiencing has been projected by climate research for many years. What we are seeing is a clear sign of what the future will be like.”
Nigel Arnell, professor of climate system science at the University of Reading, said: “It is incredibly unlikely that we will see major restrictions on water use in the UK. There are many things that water companies can do before restricting a large number of users.”
He said the case of an Oxfordshire village that ran out of water was a “one-off” and the result of “technical problems” rather than an anticipation of what the rest of England could expect.
Jamie Hannaford, chief hydrologist at the UK’s Center for Ecology and Hydrology, said water companies were also “more resilient than they were in 1976, we have better water management”.
Farmers faced restrictions on how much water they were allowed to take from rivers and groundwater sources, threatening crop yields and raising the prospect of even higher food prices.
Wednesday’s satellite image shows the large areas that have been affected by prolonged dry conditions, leaving parched land turning from green to yellow and brown. Photograph: Met Office/Crown Copyright/PA
Jerry Knox, professor of agricultural water management at Cranfield University, said: “We are starting to see real problems for crops like potatoes. We will see reduced yields and especially reduced quality.”
Those problems would continue into the fall, he said, as farmers couldn’t plant crops as usual and ranchers were already feeding animals destined for the winter because they couldn’t graze in the fields.
Nature experts said they feared some rivers were reaching a “point of no return” as pollution and sewage discharges into rivers and streams had already greatly reduced their natural capacity to cope with drought.
There was also a high risk of wildfires across the country, as satellite images had shown extraordinary levels of dryness in vegetation and soils. Arnell said access to some vulnerable areas could be restricted to prevent people starting fires accidentally or deliberately, and firefighters had warned the UK was not “fully prepared” for the conditions.
The Environment Agency has told water companies not to allow sewage to flow into rivers if there is heavy rain following the drought. Seven channels have been closed to navigation due to low water.
Rain and cooler weather were expected next week, but that would do little to ease drought conditions, experts said.
“Cooler temperatures will reduce water demand, but next week’s rain is likely to be showers and thunderstorms, which are unexpected. [in terms of their impact]” said Liz Bentley, Chief Executive of the Royal Meteorological Society and Professor of Meteorology at the University of Reading.
Dry soils cannot absorb heavy rainfall, so any storm next week could lead to flash flooding. “We will need an extended period of steady rain for days if not weeks [to alleviate the drought]” Bentley said.
Conservative leadership candidate Rishi Sunak said in a statement: “For too long, water has not been given the attention it deserves. We are experiencing some of the driest conditions in decades and have to ensure that measures to increase resilience to extreme weather conditions are part of our holistic plan for water: protecting the supply and cleaning it.”
It said it would “hold water companies accountable”, speed up water reservoir approvals and “explore potential incentives to encourage private investment in infrastructure that can mitigate the impact of floods and droughts”.
Experts already consider England to be in a state of meteorological, hydrological and agricultural drought, meaning that there has been little rain, water reserves and soil moisture have been depleted and farmers are being very affected, but the drought can only be declared officially. by ministers, and that affects what water companies can do.
A boy plays football on the very dry pitches of Hackney Marshes in East London. Photo: Victoria Jones/PA
Riccardo la Torre, national head of the Firefighters Union, said bushfires are life-threatening – dozens of homes were destroyed during last month’s heatwave – and cuts to their services in recent years they were to blame for the lack of preparation.
La Torre told Sky News: “These are brutal, brutal fires to fight – the temperature at which they burn, the speed at which they spread. The reality is that we have not been prepared to do this as a service fire and rescue.
“We’ve had more than a fifth of our workforce cut since 2010, that’s more than 11,500 firefighters cut. However, we’re asking them to deal with these extreme weather events with increasing regularity and increasing severity.”
Bentley said some of the drought’s impacts could be long-term or permanent, particularly if wildfires destroyed forests and peatlands. “Businesses and homes can be rebuilt, but there will be significant long-term effects on landscapes and people’s lives.”
Rivington said that as the climate warms, these events will become more frequent and more severe. “In the future, there is a substantial risk that the recharge of water tables by winter rains will not be sufficient to compensate for the increased summer water deficit, so that if there are two consecutive years of drought, the water shortage will be even more severe.”