{"id":851845,"date":"2026-08-11T21:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T21:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851845\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T21:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T21:18:11","slug":"droughts-were-predicted-decades-ago-yet-water-companies-did-nothing-drought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851845\/","title":{"rendered":"Droughts were predicted decades ago \u2013 yet water companies did nothing | Drought"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">In 1998, I travelled to London for the release of the Meteorological Office\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ora.ox.ac.uk\/objects\/uuid:ffe1394e-cfea-4e55-a561-2b707325fd1b\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first forecasts of the impact of climate change<\/a> on the UK. I was encouraged to see in the audience many representatives from water companies from the south of England. The Met Office modelling <a href=\"https:\/\/ora.ox.ac.uk\/objects\/uuid:ffe1394e-cfea-4e55-a561-2b707325fd1b\/files\/m690409093da9993accfc229178b344bb\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">showed that<\/a> \u201cFor summer, there is a general tendency for drying in the south of the UK\u201d and \u201cWarming over the UK will be more rapid in the south-east\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Today, representatives of the southern water boards appear to be surprised that we are experiencing a drought in the south of England (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/2026\/aug\/10\/uk-temperatures-heatwave-summer-met-office-warning\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Three-quarters of England in drought as summer\u2019s fifth heatwave looms, 10 August<\/a>). They should have paid more attention to the science and started the planning and building of reservoirs 28 years ago instead of putting their profits into the pockets of their shareholders.<br \/>Steve Lindsay<br \/>Emeritus professor of public health entomology, Durham University<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"> How can we be so short of water when, as an island, we are surrounded by the stuff? Solar powered desalination is the answer. Why is it not even being discussed?<br \/>Martin Gray<br \/>Radley, Oxfordshire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1998, I travelled to London for the release of the Meteorological Office\u2019s first forecasts of the impact&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,128],"class_list":["post-851845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}