England faces drought this summer as reservoir water levels dwindle

29 comments

1. England is heading towards a drought this summer unless there is significant rainfall soon, as reservoir water levels dwindle.

   The government will on Wednesday convene the National Drought Group of water companies, farming groups and other experts to prepare for what is expected to be a dry summer with potential water shortages.

   Scotland has already sounded the alarm over drought in the coming months, issuing an “early warning” of water scarcity in April.

   No reservoirs have been built in England for more than 30 years, which leaves the country particularly vulnerable to drought. Reservoir levels are lower than they should be after parts of the country had their driest spring on record, and if the dry weather continues as predicted there may be water shortages leading to hosepipe bans and potentially other forms of rationing.

   To avert a drought, there would need to be rainfall at levels last seen in 2012, when record-breaking deluges caused floods across the country, according to the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management.

   A spokesperson for CIWEM said: “Rainfall totals across much of the British Isles have been low since the start of 2025. This has reduced the amount of recharge and refill possible in groundwater and reservoir resources over the 2024-25 winter, and left water resources below the levels companies would like to see at the start of the spring/summer seasons. The data shows that at present 2025 rainfall is similar to levels last seen in drought events of the last 20 years. It suggests that sustained rainfall, such as that last seen in 2012, would be required to remove the threat of drought this year.”

   However, long-term forecasts suggest the conditions are ripe for very warm and dry months ahead. April was the sunniest since records began, with a mean temperature of 9.6C (49.3F) for the UK, 1.7C above average, making it the third warmest April for mean temperature since the series began in 1884. The UK received just over 56% of the rainfall it would usually expect in April and the Thames area has particularly suffered this spring, getting just 13% of the average rainfall.

2. Yet the campaign to stop a reservoir being built near Didcot is vociferous

3. [removed]

4. Your yearly reminder that domestic water use accounts for single percentage points of the total water use in the UK and hosepipe bans are utterly useless and meaningless in the face of eye watering water use by farms and corporations, not to mention the fact that we lose literal billions of litres of water from water leaks from our infrastructure alone.

   Once again pushing the issues of the system onto consumers.

5. We had historic floods in November, yet we are already running out of water, this issue is not having suitable reserves for our population.

6. We’ve also not built a single new reservoir since privatisation, which goes a long way to be the problem.

   Would also be nice if people took all of the discussions of climate risk seriously rather than dismissing it as alarmist.

7. It’s alright, by 40% higher bill to Thames Water will sort it

8. > England is heading towards a drought this summer unless there is significant rainfall soon, as reservoir water levels dwindle.

   > The government will on Wednesday convene the National Drought Group of water companies, farming groups and other experts to prepare for what is expected to be a dry summer with potential water shortages.

   Does England have a big dam for power generation and water? It seems that the country can’t cope with a bit of snow, sun, rain or even wind …

9. Can people stop using ChatGPT to do their homework and fill out job applications and stuff please? Thanks.

10. How can we be running out of water when, until this Spring, it barely stopped raining for at least 2 years prior. Not to mention seemingly weeks and weeks of flooding. Where did it all go if not into reservoirs and lakes?

11. Yorkshire Water increased their prices by 31% this year to cover their fines and keep their shareholders happy rather than fix the leaks.

    Stop blaming the consumer, fix the issues, and tell your shareholders to expect a little less next year. Maybe we can fill the reservoirs with their tears?

12. Quite a contrast from the cold and wet of last year. Not surprised with how dry April has been

13. Don’t we see this story every year? Have they built any new reservoirs?

14. I walked around several reservoirs at the weekend. And was quite alarmed at how low they were. But then I remembered, it’s not rained much recently. The forecast says it’s not going to rain for the next 12 days either. Oh dear. We need it to rain.

15. They’ll do what they’ve always done. Steal water from the Welsh.

16. I mean yeah… That’s reservoir levels dropping as they serve their purpose. Plenty of far better reasons to rag on water companies

17. Thanks the Gods there’s no significant water pipes from here to the South

18. The problem is they haven’t been dredged in years. Even if they look full, they are only 50% capacity. But dredging eats into profits, so we’d best stick to higher bills, water meters, and hosepipe bans.

19. Get ready for hikes in water prices, folks. There’s a reason they’re putting this news out even though it’s not news.

20. Oh look, more scaremongering by the media with no actual basis of facts.

    Oh look, most of the general public believe said scaremongering.

    Rinse and repeat.

21. Why don’t they build more reservoirs instead of just handing out endless cash to shareholders.

22. If only they’d put up bills massively in the last 30 years to pay for new reservoirs to meet demand and fix the leaks – oh, hang on…

23. I’m sure Reform said it was all those imagrants fault

24. Called it in April, its barely rained here for nearly 4 months

25. Cos it’s GlOwBlE WaRmiNg See… nowt to do with broken pipes. So lets dim the sun. Jeez… UK gets enough rain to satisfy a bucket of toads sprinkled with salt. Can you imagine these plebs managing water in Dubai? LOL.

26. Never thought I’d see the day that water becomes a rare luxury, but here we are. They’ve polluted all our freshwater sources and drove the price through the roof to keep it expensive and stop us from getting it ourselves for free and crush competition. Now these companies have a monopoly on a human requirement we can’t live without. Really diabolical when you consider it, treating water as If it was gold.

    I hate to be a doomer but this is how the world ends; not with a bang but with a whimper. Overpopulation and a food and water shortage is how these things start. Next you’ll be collecting it from the back of trucks like you’re in need of some kind of humanitarian assistance because you can’t get water from a wet country, all while fat cats and water CEOs sit on their mountains of cash.

27. environment agency are not allowing farmers/ making it extremely difficult to build new reservoirs to capture water in the winter. On my farm we applied for back in the 90’s to deepen our winter fed/spring fed reservoir to 15 million gallons, we still have to pay our local water company money for the water even though we invested the money into the project and they do essentially nothing.

    we’ve also been told our abstraction license is most likely to be cut in half next time it’s renewal comes around… doesn’t make sense at all when we are filling it during winter when we have excess water. The private investment is there to make more reservoir’s in the right places but they are being prevented by nimby’s and government

28. We lose billions of litres every year because of leaking pipes.

    Ban the water companies from paying dividends unless the amount lost in leaks decreases by 5% each year.

29. We are wet af, we need more water retention. I love dams but we are a wetland. A beautiful wetland, don’t build houses on flood land and let them rewild!

Comments are closed.