Gleick thinks this is a sign of things to come for countries such as Britain: the wealthy will receive ample water for their pools and lawn sprinklers, while the poor will be left to scrap over what\u2019s left.<\/p>\n
And the short-sightedness is striking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not unusual that humans don\u2019t despair until disaster strikes, but that\u2019s not the smartest thing to do,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
Drought in rainy Britain<\/p>\n
One of the absurdities of Britain\u2019s possible future is that it is a country with abundant rainfall. It is not Iran, where more than 30,000 villages have been deserted because of drought. Nor is it Somalia, where entire regions are emptying out because bore holes have run dry.<\/p>\n
But British droughts are exacerbated because although we are experiencing wetter winters, hotter springs and drier summers mean that the water we have in abundance in December and January evaporates rapidly.<\/p>\n
Inevitably, not all parts of the UK are equally affected by drought. East Anglia, the Midlands and the South East are worst affected.<\/p>\n
East Anglia is particularly dry. It averages less than 600mm of rainfall per year and its average daily drinking water usage stands at 1.1 billion litres.<\/p>\n
This is comparatively low. Water users in East Anglia generally pay for what they use and they have water metres. This seems to drive down consumption considerably with usage per person being almost 30 litres a day less than usage in the South East.<\/p>\n
How you can help<\/p>\n
Cutting water consumption is vital to solve the crisis. There are ways Britons can save water to help avert disaster, both as individuals and as corporations.<\/p>\n
Britons are not the most water-hungry people on earth, but neither are they the most eco-conscious.<\/p>\n
The average person in the UK uses 140 litres a day and in the United States, they use up to 380 litres. But in Germany they use 121 and in the Netherlands they use even less.<\/p>\n
The EU operates tax breaks for building projects that can show they are sustainable, and one way of achieve that is to include lavatories that average a flush of 3.5 litres. Plenty of UK lavatories flush almost five times that amount.<\/p>\n