I am from the Mountain West region in the US, where last year offered a rather long drought. As such, we’ve all become much more careful about water usage and waste.
On a trip to England earlier this year, I was brushing my teeth and the thought occurred to me that, since I’m no longer in a drought area, the same water use restrictions may not have the same compelling force.
Now, this is not a question about whether conservation always makes sense and/or whether there are ancilliary benefits (e.g. fossil fuel conservation, etc.) to such conservation.
The question I am trying to ask is whether conserving water in England has any direct and discernable effect on water conservation in more distant regions of the world… even if that effect is rather small or indirect. Have such effects ever been measured?
Wow, this thread made it to page 5 without a response. So here goes;
In neighboring countries or regions a drought in one area could affect those surrounding it as dams across rivers are kept locked, but this would only be a problem if the drought stricken country were upstream.
As for more distant countries, trade could be affected if the drought caused diminished harvests of commodities traded among the two countries. This could include grain, meats and fruits or vegetables.
You could also imagine a certain amount of disease transmittal if the drought stricken country was not prepared to address the thousands of animal carcasses that usually accompany severe drought in certain parts of the world. It is conceivable that a traveller could depart India for example during one of it’s notorious droughts with a disease that flourishes on carcasses but can be transmitted by the living.
The OP specifically said he was not interested in ancillary benefits, but I’ll post anyway. I lived in California all my life (except for a year and a half in Japan when I was little), and have lived in a “draught”. Low-flow shower heads have been required in L.A. for quite some time.
Now I live in northern Washington. The first thing I did in my new house was to replace the old, adjustable shower head with a low-flow shower head. In L.A. I didn’t pay for water. It was included in my rent. Now that I have to pay for it, it makes sense for me to use as little as necessary. The low-flow shower head decreases my water consumption, and also reduces my consumption of electricity since new, cold, water does not need to be heated. Besides, after 17 years of using a low-flow head, I prefer the way it feels.
Another thing is that with the old head and when the hot water was low, there would be a “juddering” sound from the pipes. I had to use more hot water than I wanted to (and more cold water to modulate the temperature) to keep the pipes from making noise. The low-flow head fixed that.
So even though I’m living in Rain Land, it makes economic sense for me to use a low-flow head. It saves money on water, and it saves money on electricity.
I also think about “grey water”. Everything that goes down the drain needs to be processed before it is released into the ocean. By sending less water to the treatment plant (which was found to be the top-rated plant in the state, BTW; and our incoming water has been found to be Ichiban as well ) there is less likelihood of untreated or minimally treated waste water overflowing during a storm. (In L.A. they’d always close beaches after a storm; mostly because of runoff, but also because the Hyperion Water Treatment Plant would overflow in a heavy rain.)
) there is less likelihood of untreated or minimally treated waste water overflowing during a storm. (In L.A. they’d always close beaches after a storm; mostly because of runoff, but also because the Hyperion Water Treatment Plant would overflow in a heavy rain.)