DROUGHT IN THE UK
H2 OH !!!
This page last updated July 2008 and now ARCHIVED.
Drought is defined differently in different locations. The newspapers in the UK have been preparing us for a water shortage in Summer 2006 for some months. The winter 'recharge' of the groundwater supplies has apparently not been happening, and like a bank account, if you keep taking out without putting back in you end up getting overdrawn...
Of course since then it's been raining without a break...
The great drought of 1976 is something which those people who lived through it will not forget. I posted on the SLN Forum, and got a number of reminiscences from people, some of whom were teaching at the time !
Apparently we use 70% more water than we did 40 years ago.
A golf course uses 7 million litres of water per year.
A hosepipe uses 600 litres of water per hour.
Why not get your own bore hole drilled ? It's boring work...
How about the BEAT THE DROUGHT website for more ideas.
Why not fit an INTERFLUSH device.
DROUGHT OF 1976
The great drought of 1976 is remembered by all who lived through it. The summer of 1976 was the first time perhaps that people in the UK realised that water could actually run short, despite our reputation for wet weather. A fairly dry summer in 1975 with a dry winter to follow lowered the aquifers. During the summer of 1976, the synoptic chart showed a prolonged period of high pressure, with a large anticyclone or 'blocking' high - this meant that under 50% of the average rainfall was received, and the cloudless skies associated with high pressure ensured very high levels of sunshine and therefore evapotranspiration.
The summer of 1976 represented the driest period in known weather history until then.
http://www.iceni.org.uk/index/heatwave.htm - some data
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