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THE CLIMATE CHALLENGE 39


hotter and drier summers. That will mean more water shortages and a higher risk of more frequent and more extreme droughts.”


This is not just a ‘special interest group’- held belief – the Westminster Sustainable Business Forum (WSBF) produced many similar findings in its 2018 report ‘Bricks and Water’. It predicts that by 2050, “water demand could exceed supply by up to 22 per cent.”


basins, green roofs, and permeable paving, the latter proving to be a particu- larly popular and efficient measure. In essence, it’s a system that allows water falling on hard landscaping to permeate to the soil below, usually via some kind of porous pavement material or structure. Guidance and regulation on SuDS however has long been a contentious issue – it’s been over three years now since Government abandoned dedicated requirements for SuDS in England using the 2010 ‘Flood and Water Management Act.’ In contrast, however, earlier this year


the Welsh Government implemented Schedule 3 of the act, which includes measures to establish a SuDS Approving Body (SAB). Alongside this, SuDS systems as a whole in the UK have been given a regulatory boost by what’s known as Sewers for Adoption 8 (SfA8) – official guidance set to come into force around April 2020 (which explicity promotes the use of SuDS in schemes). As to the latter however, rather than seeming to be a silver bullet for sustainable drainage, neither permeable pavements or green roofs are covered in the document, and there have been some concerns as to how strongly these standards can be enforced. So, there is technology available to adapt communities to protect against some flood risks, backed by official guidance, but the real question remains: will these measures be enough? While some developers may struggle to justify costs at this stage, and there is a question of whether the Government should intervene here, not doing so is a likely to be a false economy in the long run. Even now, the cost to the taxpayer of dealing with the damage caused by flooding is already over £1bn every year.


WATER SHORTAGES


Where flooding implies an abundance of water, water shortages are perhaps a more expected consequence of rising temperatures. As the CCC report found: “Population growth will increase the


demand for water, while climate change is projected to make summers drier,” an issue which it states is in “urgent need” of co-ordinated action. Surprisingly, flooding and drought go


hand in hand. Alongside the more obvious fact that soil absorbs water far less efficiently when it is dry and compacted, droughts affect water vapour concentra- tions, clouds, precipitation patterns and runoff, and stream flow patterns – all of which have the potential to increase the risk of flash floods.


EACH SECTOR HAS A DIFFERENT PLANNING HORIZON, LEADING TO INCOHERENCE OF APPROACH


As to the increased demands for water – the potential for water deficits is most acute in London and the south east, but, the CCC found that “routine deficits between available water and demand may emerge in northern and western UK areas by mid-century.”


Sir James Bevan, chief executive of the Environment Agency, has referred to what he has called “The Jaws of Death” in speeches this year. This is where, as if on an x/y axis on a graph, the predicted water demand that is expected to rise over the next several decades, and the water that will be available to supply those needs, meet. He told the Water Industry Forum in Birmingham in May this year: “Somewhere out along the timeline, usually around 20 years from now, those lines cross. Those are the ‘jaws of death’ – the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs.” He said: “This risk is being driven by climate change. In the UK we will have


It estimates that “an extra 4 billion litres of water will be needed every day by 2050 to ensure that the water network is resilient, and there is currently a planned resilience shortfall in the water sector of 1,000 Ml/day.”


The WSBF points out that the homes we are building will be around for the next 50-100 years “at least.” The report adds: “Unless these houses are designed to be water efficient and flood resilient, it will be future generations who have to pay, and the costs of retrofit or crisis responses are inevitably higher.” The organisation cites cuts as a danger to


alleviating the situation, saying that The Environment Agency has suffered 19 per cent staff cuts in the past five years, includ- ing 40 per cent of its ‘planning and development control’ staff. It adds that the government agency Natural England’s budget has been cut 60 per cent since 2009, “losing many of its policy specialists.” Continuing on the structural issues in the housebuilding sector, the report says: “Relationships between water companies, housebuilders and local authorities are complex and disjointed, with no desig- nated forum to initiate strategic discussions about how to tackle problems at scale or nationally. Each sector has a different planning horizon, leading to incoherence of approach. There is palpable distrust between some house- builders and water companies, which is evidenced by their breakdown in communication, and this is causing costs and delays to both parties.” It also claims that homes “aren’t as water efficient as we think they are,” citing evidence from Thames Water that “suggests that new homes built to a standard of 105 litres per person per day actually tend to be using between 5-25 per cent more than expected.” One way in which this can be remediated is through the use of ‘water- responsible’ products. Such products aim to offer low water use, where many suffer from high water consumption and energy usage. The European Unified Water Label has helped to drive this forwards, providing a standardised labelling system for bathroom manufacturers to clearly display a products water and energy usage at a glance.


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