Water Resource Management: Moving from Single Risk-Based Management to Resilience to Multiple Stressors

Sarah Bunney, Elizabeth Lawson, Sarah Cotterill and David Butler
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Sarah Bunney: Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK
Elizabeth Lawson: Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK
Sarah Cotterill: School of Civil Engineering, University College Dublin, D04 V1W8 Dublin 4, Ireland
David Butler: Centre for Water Systems, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QF, UK

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 15, 1-22

Abstract: Water resource management in the UK is multifaceted, with a complexity of issues arising from acute and chronic stressors. Below average rainfall in spring 2020 coincided with large-scale changes to domestic water consumption patterns, arising from the first UK-wide COVID-19 lockdown, resulting in increased pressure on nationwide resources. A sector wide survey, semi-structured interviews with sector executives, meteorological data, water resource management plans and market information were used to evaluate the impact of acute and chronic threats on water demand in the UK, and how resilience to both can be increased. The COVID-19 pandemic was a particularly acute threat: water demand increased across the country, it was unpredictable and hard to forecast, and compounding this, below average rainfall resulted in some areas having to tanker in water to ‘top up’ the network. This occurred in regions of the UK that are ‘water stressed’ as well as those that are not. We therefore propose a need to look beyond ‘design droughts’ and ‘dry weather average demand’ to characterise the management and resilience of future water resources. As a sector, we can learn from this acute threat and administer a more integrated approach, combining action on the social value of water, the implementation of water trading and the development of nationwide multi-sectoral resilience plans to better respond to short and long-term disruptors.

Keywords: COVID-19; drought; resilience; water demand (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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