The island of Britain has no mountains to speak of, certainly not big ones like the Rockies or the Andes, with big winter snowcaps to feed rivers like the Mississippi-Missouri system or the Amazon.
But Britain does have rivers, and as populous as it is I’ve never heard of water shortages over there. So where does all their fresh water come from? Does it just rain that much? Or is there abundant ground water?
as you may have heard, it rains occasionally; this keeps the rivers topped up.
Actually, a lot of upland soils are very water-retentive, so the winter rains take months to drip out of them into the tributaries.
Often questions like this are based on a misunderstanding about the size of the British isles (I heard somebody say once that they couldn’t understand why anyone in britain would want a chainsaw, as there couldn’t possibly be ebough trees to warrant it’s use :rolleyes:). I’m not saying this is the case with your question though Fiver.
(I thought this thread was going to be about urination, but I’m not disappointed that it isn’t)
Just remembered; I visited Beer Quarry Caves a few years back (this is a limestone quarry cave where the stone for the Tower of London, Windsor Castle and Westminster Abbey was sourced) - the entrances to the caves are a little above sea level, in a cliff face.
The guide told us that the water we could see dripping down the walls etc. fell as rain on the surface (on top of the cliff) more than a century ago and has taken that long just to seep though the rock, so I suppose there might be geological ‘sponges’ as well as organic/soil ones at the surface.
Haines sat down to pour out the tea.
-- I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do make strong tea, don't you?
Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's wheedling voice:
-- When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I makes water I makes water.
[sub]—James Joyce, Ulysses[/sub]
Sorry, that link is empty, should be:
I am not an expert, but the hills and small mountain ranges in this country seem to offer sufficient catchment for our water supplies.
There are such features in Wales, Scotland and parts of England such as the Cotswold hills (the source of the Thames), the Cumbrian hills and the Pennines, so we don’t go short.
If that wasn’t enough, we have had so much rain in the last two springs, and last autumn, that we have water coming out of our ears.
In fact, we have a much bigger problem with flooding than with drought, as those people who live in low lying areas adjacent to rivers could testify.
Occasionally we have a hot dry summer which results in several water authorities imposing hosepipe bans but, in recent years, this is as far as it goes.
Yes, in fact the water in my area (a little north-west of London) is from aquifers (water carrying rock) - the area has a lot of limestone & the water seeps down from the surface, is filtered through the rock & eventually stops when it reaches a non-porous rock. Wells are then drilled down to this level and the water pumped out. Unfortunately, this does lead to very hard water (containing calcium carbonate).
Also, as mentioned we do have a lot of rivers, fed from rain. Mountains do not have to be high to feed rivers running into lands lower than them. They just need to receive rain/snowfall at a greater rate than the rate of evaporation in the area. They definitely get this, particularly along the west coast of the country, as the majority of British weather comes from air blocks moving in over the Atlantic. As you can imagine, they pick up a lot of water vapour in transit, and when they cool, or when they’re forced to rise to pass the Welsh Mountains, the Lake District, Peak District or any of our other hills and mountains, they deposit that water as rain (or snow/hail if it is colder).
The east of the country is in what is termed a rain shadow area, but still receives plenty of rainfall, or can take it from rivers originating further west. As an example of which, Birmingham in the middle of the country, which is in a river valley of its own, & on a sandstone aquifer, actually obtains its water from a reservoir built in Wales about a hundred years ago, at a place called Elan Valley. The land was bought (180km[sup]2[/sup]) & dams built & it was flooded, requiring the relocation of local communities.
The Lake District probably holds a fair bit of water.
I know London has one or two bloody great natural caverns deep down from which supply is now drawn (a privatisation thing, don’t ya know!).
Thanks for the answers. I guess the island is bigger (and thus a bigger watershed) than I’d realized.
Are there expected to be any water shortages in the future as the population grows? I live in the U.S. state of Georgia, in the Southeast where till recently there was always more water than anyone could use. But the Southeast has grown in population so much in recent years that there are now bitter disputes between Georgia, Alabama and Florida over the rivers that serve all three states (but which originate mostly in northern Georgia).
Not that Britain, with its centralized government, could have such disputes, but still I wonder if water’s becoming more dear.
Shouldn’t England be a desert?
To my understanding, shouldn’t the mountain chain (on the West side if I’m not mistaken) cause the rain shadow effect therefore stopping all rain from going East?
If you were to look at a rainfall map of the British Isles you’d see that Ireland has more rain than the UK and that the western side has more rain than the east, but the Penine mountain range is not really high enough to have the sort of effect that, say, the Andes has as a rain shield, plus our weather doesn’t always cross directly from west to east.
Population growth in the UK has been a net negative with emigration from here included in the figures, however demand for water has increased overall, possibly due to more household appliances.
This demand has been partly offset by the reduced demand by industry as the textile industry has shrunk dramtically since the last war.
The main problem is that people seem to want to live in areas like London where there is less rainfall and storage is limited, plus trying to construct a new reservoir dam will upset the environmentalist lobby no end, so the main difficulty is moving water from one area to another, since having the water equivalent of a electrical grid system is not practical due to the cost of pipework and pumping. especially when all that is really needed is to use water more wisely.
Actually over the last decade the UK population has grown steadily by about 200,000 a year. This is a mix of both natural growth (births - deaths) and net migration.
10 years of data - see page 3
Water use in the UK seems to have been quite variable, but the 1999 figure is not much larger than 1980
Water use - table 1
…and to stretch our supplies we dilute it.
In times of extreme drought, most shops also sell it in powdered form.
And our reluctance to use showers or to serve water in restaurants are measures adopted to conserve supplies.
and of course rationing ice to one cube per drink
Calling them ‘mountains’ (in the same sense as The Rockies) is a little like saying Buffy’s damn busty – generous and, alas, something of an illusion. Not that I know…but I do like exploring upland slopes.
I guess you’re right in so much as there is the occasional mountainous high point but the range isn’t there for the effect to get a grip.
Matron, a glass of water please…
You’re singing my tune.
All I know is that it seems to rain all the bloody time. Like, right now for instance. Shower, quite literally, of bastards.
pan