Latest news with #wateruse
The Guardian
a day ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Ofwat – what are they thinking of?
Following major sewage breaches by Thames Water, Ofwat imposed a massive fine on it, the only effect being to make it still further unable to perform its legal responsibilities, instead of obtaining authority to prosecute the responsible executives of the company. Then the powers that be announced the imminence of a drought, yet the public has not been urged to cut water use. Can any of your readers enlighten me as to the thought process of our water regulators?Prof Roy GoodeOxford I have not enjoyed a double-yolk egg for more than 30 years until last week, when all six in a box of free-range eggs had double yolks. Rachel Reeves would have no worries if we could all raise our productivity by the same JohnsonBedford I was delighted by the excellent review of Beaumaris's launderette (Letters, 17 August). However, the Blue Bay Launderette in Llangollen is even more marvellous. Just in case anyone camping in north Wales needs one, the Welsh word for launderette is CollinsCarrog, Denbighshire To an atheist like me, this dispute over Good Friday (Letters, 14 August) is like two bald men fighting over a Joss BuckleyLondon On reflection, I find the planting of a potato tuber or seed into the ground on Good Friday deeply symbolic. I commend Christians and non-Christians to do so next spring, on 3 April Canon John Longuet-HigginsHartpury, Gloucestershire Have an opinion on anything you've read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Yahoo
24-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The Murray–Darling Basin Plan Evaluation is out. The next step is to fix the land, not just the flows
A report card into the A$13 billion Murray–Darling Basin Plan has found much work is needed to ensure the ecology of Australia's largest river system is properly restored. The assessment, by the Murray–Darling Basin Authority, is the most comprehensive to date. The authority says the river system is doing better now than it would have without the plan, which aims to ensure sustainable water use for the environment, communities and industries. But it found there is more to be done. We are water, economics and environmental researchers with many years of experience working in the Murray-Darling Basin. We agree more work is needed, but with a more local focus, to restore the basin to health. This requires more than just more water for the environment. Coordinated local efforts to restore rivers and the surrounding land are desperately needed. There's so much more to the river system than just the water it contains. What's the plan? The Murray-Darling Basin is Australia's food bowl. But for too long, the health of environment was in decline – rivers were sick and wildlife was suffering. The river stopped flowing naturally to the sea because too much water was being taken from it. Poor land management has also degraded the river system over time. Floodplain vegetation has been damaged, the river channel has been re-engineered, and pest plants and animals have been introduced. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan was established in 2012. It aimed to recover water for the environment and safeguard the long-term health of the river system, while continuing to support productive agriculture and communities. It demanded more water for the environment and then described how this water would be delivered, in the form of targeted 'environmental flows'. Since 2012, the allocation of water to various uses has gradually changed. So far, 2,069 billion litres (gigalitres) of surface water has been recovered for the environment. Combined with other earlier water recovery, a total of about 28% of water previously diverted for agriculture, towns and industry is now being used by the environment instead. A mixed report card The evaluation released today is the first step towards a complete review of the plan next year. The 2026 review will make recommendations to Environment and Water Minister Murray Watt. It will then be up to him to decide whether any changes are needed. It is a mixed report card. Ecological decline has been successfully halted at many sites. But sustained restoration of ecosystems across the basin is yet to be achieved, and native fish populations are in poor condition across 19 of the basin's 23 catchments. Climate change is putting increasing pressure on water resources. More intense and frequent extreme climate events and an average 20–30% less streamflow (up to 50% in some rivers) are expected by mid-century. The evaluation also called for better policy and program design. Specifically, flexible programs have proven more effective than prescriptive, highly regulated programs. Finally, the report also highlights that the cost of water reform is increasing. Direct buybacks of water licences, mostly from irrigators, account for around two-thirds of the water recovered for the environment under the basin plan. Buybacks are the simplest and most cost-effective way to recover water but are controversial because of concerns about social and economic impacts. Much of the remaining water has been recovered through investment in more efficient water supply infrastructure, with water savings reserved for environmental use. The authority suggests different approaches will be needed for additional water recovery. Healthy rivers need more than water For the past two decades, measures to restore the Murray-Darling Basin have focused largely on water recovery. But research suggests attention now needs to be paid to other, more local actions. In March, one author of this article – Samantha Capon – identified nine priority actions to restore Australia's inland river and groundwater ecosystems at local levels. They included: revegetating land alongside waterways retiring some farmland modifying barriers to fish movements installing modern fish screens on irrigation pumps. The study estimated such actions would cost around A$2.9 billion a year, if completed over the next 30 years. Works to restore vegetation or other environmental conditions at these critical habitats will only occur with landholders, as well as Traditional Owners. That's because most of the basin's wetlands and floodplain areas are on private property, including in irrigation districts. Irrigator involvement is needed to place fish screens on private irrigation pumps or retire farmland. There is a growing interest and some early experience in using private irrigation channels to deliver environmental water. This also requires local partnerships. The basin plan should include targets for environmental outcomes, not just water recovery. This will allow the benefits from local restoration measures and environmental flows to be included when tracking the plan. Such ecosystem accounting tools already exist. Research is urgently needed to make these tools both locally relevant and suitable for the basin plan. Time for a local approach To date, water for the environment under the basin plan has been recovered largely through centralised government-led programs. Decisions around the delivery of environmental flows are also largely in the hands of government agencies. But other local restoration actions are also needed. A business-as-usual approach would leave responsible agencies struggling to complete these vital local measures with limited funding, resources and accountability. This article is republished from The Conversation. It was written by: Michael Stewardson, The University of Melbourne; Neville Crossman, Flinders University; Samantha Capon, Griffith University, and Seth Westra, University of Adelaide Read more: Historic ruling finds climate change 'imperils all forms of life' and puts laggard nations on notice World's highest court issues groundbreaking ruling for climate action. Here's what it means for Australia Politics with Michelle Grattan: Chris Bowen on why it's 'a little frustrating' bidding for COP 31 Michael Stewardson is a member of the Advisory Committee on Social, Economic and Environmental Science, which advises the Murray Darling Basin Authority,, although he is not representing the views of this committee in this article. The committee is established under Section 203 of the Water Act 2007. Michael Stewardson is the CEO of the One Basin CRC, which is jointly funded under the commonwealth Cooperative Research Centre Program and by its partners listed here: These partners include: state and federal government agencies including the Murray Darling Basin Authority; irrigation infrastructure operators (government owned and non-government), natural resource management agencies (government and non-government); agriculture businesses, industry organisation and R&D organisations; local government organisations; consulting companies in the water sector; technology companies; education and training organisations; and research organisation. Partners contribute to the One Basin CRC in the form of in-kind and cash contributions. The One Basin CRC is also funded by the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office under its FlowMER program. The views in this article do not necessarily represent the views of these partner and funding organisations. Michael Stewardson has previously received research funding from the Australian Research Council and both state and federal government agencies. Neville Crossman is a Program Leader for Adaptation and Innovation in the One Basin CRC. He is a past employee of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority (2018-2024). He has worked closely with a range of State and federal government agencies and many researchers, industry and community members in the Murray-Darling Basin throughout his career. Samantha Capon receives funding from the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), NSW DCCEEW, the Cotton Research and Development Corporation. She is a member of the Murray-Darling Basin Authority's Advisory Committee for Social, Economic and Environmental Science (ACSEES), but is not representing the view of this committee in this article. Samantha has worked closely with NRM agencies, a range of State and federal government agencies and many researchers, industry and community members in the Murray-Darling Basin throughout her career. Seth Westra is the Research Director for the One Basin CRC. He receives funding from the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW), NSW DCCEEW and the South Australian Department for Environment and Water (DEW). Seth is Research Director of the One Basin Cooperative Research Centre, Director of the Systems Cooperative, and has worked closely with NRM agencies, a range of State and federal government agencies and many researchers, industry and community members in the Murray-Darling Basin throughout his career.
The Guardian
22-06-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
How England's outdated water tracking system leaves regulators in the dark
Demand for water is rising fast but England's system for tracking water use is outdated, patchy and opaque, leaving regulators in the dark, and can even reward businesses for using more, experts have warned. Water licensed for farming has more than doubled in five years, from nearly 3 billion cubic metres in 2015–2019 to almost 6 billion between 2020 and 2024. The energy sector's use has also soared, with the sector's annual demand rising from 4.1 billion cubic metres in 2013 to 7.3 billion in 2023, a joint investigation by the Guardian and Watershed Investigations revealed. Part of the rise reflects previously unlicensed activities now entering the system. The Crown and Government category, which includes the Ministry of Defence, had no recorded volumes before 2021, but by 2023 had reached nearly 3 million cubic metres. Some water use is classed as non-consumptive, such as navigation or power station cooling, because it is returned shortly after use. Currently, large parts of England are officially classed as water-stressed by the Environment Agency. The north-west and Yorkshire are already in drought. Neil Entwistle, professor of river science and climate resilience at the University of Salford and head of science at Rebalance Earth, is watching his local reservoirs vanish. 'This time last year, they were 86 to 91% full. Now they're half-empty,' he said. Water use varies sharply across England. In the Midlands, 72% of abstraction is for energy. In the north-west, industrial and commercial users dominate, accounting for 62%. In the Anglian and Thames regions, public water supply is the biggest user according to the analysis of abstraction licences. But the abstraction licence system was 'designed for a completely different era,' said Entwistle. 'Back then, abstraction looked very different. The population was smaller, demand was lower, and the system worked for the time. But we're now living in the digital age and we haven't kept up.' There are significant gaps in accounting for who is using water and in what quantities. Many users are not required to report their water use, and those taking under 20 cubic metres a day – enough for 140 people – do not need a licence. 'Twenty cubic metres a day is a lot of water,' said a water industry insider. 'That's roughly two-thirds of a large tanker, every single day. It really should be tracked.' Entwistle says shrinking budgets have made things worse: 'The government has cut funding to the Environment Agency and Natural England over the years. That means fewer checks and more opportunities for people to manipulate the system.' An Environment Agency officer confirmed that many licences, especially in agriculture, go largely unchecked and when they do 'we just have to take people at their word'. Although Environment Agency inspections have recently increased, the officer said: 'Most inspections are pointless … no one knows what's really being used … If a farmer says they've used one litre all year, we wouldn't be able to prove otherwise.' Technology could close this gap. 'There's no reason you couldn't have a live-based system showing what's being extracted to the nearest 15 minutes … the technology is there,' said an industry expert. 'But I get why a farmer might not want to pay £3,000 to £4,000 to install a monitor that needs power, telemetry, maintenance and someone to check it every few years … it would feel like a real burden.' There are other problems with the system. Some licences, many issued decades ago, permit volumes far higher than would be approved today. Others have no expiry dates or set volume limits at all. And over the past five years, one in every 25 reported water returns exceeded permitted limits – twice the historical average. Yet enforcement by regulators remains rare. This week, the government set out the scale of the water resource problem and unveiled plans to fix the system, including abstraction reform and building reservoirs, but experts are sceptical they will deliver the cuts in water use. 'Once again the Environment Agency loses track of its function and tells us about a problem when their job was to ensure there wasn't a problem in the first place,' said musician and rivers campaigner Feargal Sharkey. 'We need a proper root-and-branch review of the system, not this tinkering.' 'From 2028, the agency can revoke abstraction licences that are damaging rivers without compensating the abstractor but I doubt they have a real plan to do it. They're banking on fixing leaks and cutting consumption – two things they've failed to do in any meaningful way for 35 years. Meanwhile, every chalk stream hangs in the balance.' Sign up to Headlines UK Get the day's headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning after newsletter promotion A fragmented system makes it hard to assess a company or sector's total water use. Businesses can draw from rivers, aquifers, wholesalers, retailers or the public mains, but each source is tracked separately – making it difficult to gauge overall demand or pressure on local catchments. Many businesses, including datacentres, rely on the public water supply, making their overall water use largely invisible to the Environment Agency. An Environment Agency officer said they are aware of 'some businesses switching from abstraction to mains water', increasing pressure on drinking water supplies. 'The water company gets paid for it,' they added. 'There should be hard and fast rules about not using public water supply.' Fees for bulk water use also create perverse incentives. Industrial and business users often pay less per unit as their usage increases – unlike in countries such as the US, where charges rise with volume to promote conservation. Daniel Johns, chair of Water Resources East, said: 'Non-household customers pay less per cubic metre, the bigger their bulk tariff is … It sends all the wrong incentives. Bigger businesses should pay more, and the extra income should be recycled back as grants.' 'If water is made more expensive, you create a twin incentive to use less now and to invest in rainwater harvesting for the future,' said Johns. 'Water bills are immaterial compared with energy. If you're a datacentre choosing between energy-intensive air cooling and water cooling, you're going to go for water every day of the week.' Mark Betson from the National Farmers' Union said: 'Abstraction reform is going to have a critical impact on a number of agricultural abstractors. It's going to be a challenge to build resilience into farm businesses so they can access the water they need for primary crops. 'Reservoirs play a key role but they can only be built where there is sufficient water available. Farmers need clear, long-term assurance about how much water they'll be allowed to take and when – particularly through winter abstraction licences – to justify the cost of constructing them.' As outdated licences are reviewed and removed, more businesses are likely to turn to water companies for supply, while others may drill private boreholes – many of which remain unregulated, according to Johns. 'The Environment Agency has no idea how much they are abstracting,' he said. 'It could be absolutely huge.' An Environment Agency spokesperson said: 'Our national framework for water resources includes a range of measures to help farmers build water resilience, support local water solutions, and build in real-time data to manage water abstraction more sustainably.' A Water UK spokesperson said: 'Our water supplies are increasingly at risk because of the fundamentally flawed way in which official forecasts are made for how much water we will need in the future. Our economy is increasingly paying the price, with businesses in some parts of England unable to expand for no other reason than a lack of water. We need planning hurdles cleared so we can build reservoirs quickly and we need major reform to the way we forecast water demand so that we are not in this situation again.'
The Herald
30-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald
SCA dismisses 'meritless' appeal by two environmental organisations
Because the company required the water use licencee to commence mining, it engaged various experts and obtained several specialist reports, including a hydrological, socioeconomic, geohydrology impact and a biodiversity baseline and impact assessment. It also obtained a numerical groundwater model report and conducted a public participation process as part of the application for the licence. These assessments informed the licencee conditions. In July 2016 the director-general (DG) of the department of water & sanitation issued the licence, valid for 15 years, to Atha-Africa. The licencee authorised specified water-use activities in relation to the mining to be conducted. In the same year, the two organisations appealed the DG's decision to issue the licence to the Water Tribunal. They claimed, among others, that the DG failed to consider the effect of the proposed water use on the water resource; that the DG failed to authorise certain water uses associated with the closure of the mine; that the consent of the owner of a farm regarding the use of underground water had not been obtained; and that the DG failed to apply environmental principles in the National Environmental Management Act. In 2019, the tribunal dismissed the appeal, concluding, among others, that the findings and scientific reviews by the appellants' experts were unsubstantiated and were demonstrated in evidence to be shallow. The tribunal found that sound methods were used in the Atha-Africa's wetland and hydrological studies. The SCA said the organisations appealed the tribunal's decision to the Pretoria high court in terms of section 149(1) of the NWA, which permits an appeal only on a question of law. The high court dismissed the organisations' appeal with costs. The SCA granted the appellants special leave to appeal. The SCA found in its judgment that most of the appeal grounds did not raise questions of law. It said these were questions of fact based on the evidence before the tribunal, and could not form the subject of an appeal in terms of the NWA. 'The appeal lodged by the appellants has little or no basis in law.' The court also noted the appellants lodged the appeal regardless of the consequences, including the inconvenience to and exorbitant costs that would be incurred by the department and Atha-Africa. The court said in 2011, Atha-Africa was invited to invest in South Africa. It has made an investment of US$40m in equity and prospecting rights to engage in coal mining. It has spent US$61m solely on specialist studies, to secure the necessary authorisations. 'More than 10 years later no mining has started and (Atha-Africa) has not realised any return on its investment.' TimesLIVE
BBC News
22-05-2025
- Climate
- BBC News
Water warning as prolonged dry weather hits supply
Drought experts have issued stronger advice on water use in response to record low river Resources Wales said all of Wales is being upgraded from "normal" to "prolonged dry weather" was the driest since 1944, and warm dry conditions returned in May meaning Wales saw 59% of the expected rain for that time of the equates to one of the driest three month equivalent periods on record. NRW's decision was shared with the Wales Drought Liaison Group on group is chaired by the Welsh government and made up of senior decision-makers from NRW, the Met Office, water companies, Public Health Wales, farming unions and local authority is reporting the majority of river flows are currently low or exceptionally low, with dry riverbeds and algal rivers in north and mid Wales are currently classed as having notably low levels, while the Dee and Yscir are at their driest since records began in the 1970s.Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water and Hafren Dyfrdwy are reporting some water levels in reservoirs are below where they would usually be at this time of said it fully supports water companies' advice to use water wisely."Such a dry start to the year is causing considerable concern for the health of our ecosystems and habitats, as well as for land management and the agricultural sector," said NRW's Sustainable Water and Nature Manager Rhian Thomas."As such, we have taken the decision to move the whole of Wales into prolonged dry weather status."She said it meant the agency would step up monitoring across Wales and that the Wales Drought Liaison Group would meet regularly to review the status."To ensure water can continue to be supplied without damaging the environment, the public and businesses across Wales are being urged to use water wisely and manage this precious resource," she added.
