Just Earth by Tony Juniper

Author:Tony Juniper
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781399410724
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2025-02-08T00:00:00+00:00

liquid assets

Fresh water is the life blood of the Earth’s terrestrial biosphere. Without water, ecosystems collapse, and so do economies. Every facet of our lives depends on it, from farming to industry, and from our energy supply to the functioning of cities. It is unsurprising, therefore, that when countries began to put laws in place to protect the environment during the 1970s, it was protection of water that was one of the priorities for the new regulations and enforcement agencies. Progress has been made in some places, but despite many successful efforts to clean up rivers, including UK ones such as the Tees, the Tyne and the Thames which, during Britain’s Industrial Revolution, were grossly polluted and effectively dead, the pressures on such ecosystems have nonetheless grown over time, and in some cases historical improvements have stalled or been reversed.14 , 15

Whereas once it was pollution from factories, from human waste, and from chemical works and food-processing facilities that killed England’s rivers, today it is a different mix of pressures that drive major challenges. These still include historical factors, especially the impacts of sewage, but now on top of that there’s the over-exploitation of groundwater, and the lower river flows linked with that. This is in part down to more homes being built in those areas where rainfall is comparatively low, such as around where I live in Cambridge, where some of the special chalk streams run dry as demand for water increasingly outstrips what nature can supply. With so much water pumped out of the ground, there is not enough left for the rivers.

On top of this increased demand, there are now the long dry spells and high temperatures caused by global heating, together with pollution coming from farming and the effects of centuries of land drainage that have desiccated landscapes, further impacting on rivers and wetland habitats. As is the case with farming, there has been a lot of talk about what needs to be done, and, similarly, some level of reluctance to do what is needed because of the perceived high costs of action.

In 1989, England’s water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure was transferred from public ownership to private companies. This was accompanied by a series of official regulatory processes governed by organizations that included Ofwat, which keeps watch on customer bills through agreeing how much the 17 water and wastewater companies in England can spend on the likes of maintaining sewage works, fixing leaks in pipes and building new water-supply reservoirs. Such work costs billions of pounds, and in the end it is paid for out of customers’ water bills. Ofwat’s job is to make sure that the bill-paying public get value for money through the water companies making proportionate and necessary investments. How this affects the environment is of course down to what is considered proportionate and necessary.

Should we invest the money needed to have vibrant rivers and wetlands rich in wildlife, or do we tolerate degraded and polluted waters with little natural value? The answer in many ways comes down to how much we are prepared to pay.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.