The winter droughts preceding the London Olympics of 2012 caused considerable concern. Lessons from around the world including this highly informative site on the California drought highlight the difficulty in managing water resources once the full scale of the drought has hit.

Strategic Infrastructure and Water Resilience

The Environment Agency has released a Strategic Infrastructure and Water Resilience Report. Using a range of possible future scenarios, including more severe droughts than those experienced in the last century, it considers the future water demands of different sectors and the potential economic, environmental and social costs of droughts. It finds that the cost of an extreme three year drought in the 2050s could be up to £80 billion.

The Agency has also reported on a project to assess the performance of different types of public water supply systems in England and Wales in a range of droughts, from ‘mild’ to ‘extreme’.

Pathways to Water Efficiency in Agriculture: Costs, benefits and Incentives. An independent review. A report for then Environment Agency