:00:03. > :00:13.It's Spring and it's been raining! Yet large parts of the country,
:00:13. > :00:16.
:00:16. > :00:19.including here, are officially in a drought. Tonight we investigate
:00:19. > :00:21.what's going on with England's water. Here in the East Midlands
:00:21. > :00:31.there is a divide. Water restrictions for some but not for
:00:31. > :00:37.others. And, can our own Government pick up tips from those
:00:37. > :00:46.experiencing severe droughts overseas? When you go to a country
:00:46. > :00:55.like ours, and tell them that we are tricky water they everything,
:00:55. > :00:59.they are surprised. How are under water suppliers are very low. --
:00:59. > :01:09.water suppliers are very low. -- water suppliers are very low. --
:01:09. > :01:12.our are under water suppliers. Hello, welcome to a special Inside
:01:12. > :01:15.Out about the drought. It seems crazy, it rains in spring, as you'd
:01:15. > :01:19.expect, yet large parts of the country, including here, are a
:01:19. > :01:23.drought zone after two dry winters. It left Rutland Water three
:01:23. > :01:24.quarters empty. If we have a third dry winter there could be
:01:24. > :01:34.devastating consequences particularly for wildlife and
:01:34. > :01:58.
:01:58. > :02:01.business. Anna Church has been out The day the East Midlands became
:02:01. > :02:04.officially part of the drought zone it began raining, and raining, and
:02:04. > :02:14.never seemed to stop. And as the weather presenter I've been getting
:02:14. > :02:20.
:02:20. > :02:24.some real flack about this drought. It is just ridiculous. I have just
:02:24. > :02:28.to walk past the weather, you wonder what they're talking about
:02:28. > :02:31.with all this rain. And she's got a point, the rivers are looking
:02:31. > :02:40.pretty full, but as I discovered here at Frisby on the Wreake in
:02:40. > :02:47.Leicestershire looks can be deceiving. On the face of it, the
:02:47. > :02:54.level looks very healthy. It does. Because of the rain, the river
:02:54. > :02:58.level has come up. It has come up about one metre. Just a few weeks
:02:58. > :03:02.ago they were very low, they have been low all winter. The difficulty
:03:02. > :03:07.is, if it stops raining, and we see a return to the dry weather, the
:03:07. > :03:11.river levels my drop-off again if very quickly. And that means this
:03:11. > :03:21.river could then be a full two metres lower than it should be, but
:03:21. > :03:26.even that doesn't tell the full story. To understand the drought,
:03:26. > :03:30.and the impact that it will have. We need to think about what's
:03:30. > :03:36.happening beneath the water. later we'll be peering into to the
:03:36. > :03:40.depths to discover just how bad things are. But at Rutland Water
:03:40. > :03:44.despite the rain it's not hard to see they have a problem. This vast
:03:44. > :03:48.lake is not only a vital reservoir, but also a rich and varied home to
:03:48. > :03:58.wildlife. And Reserve Manager Tim Appleton is worried that we could
:03:58. > :04:01.
:04:01. > :04:04.see a repeat of what happened here in 1989. We saw large areas of the
:04:04. > :04:10.reserve this appear. That was a major problem for us, because it's
:04:10. > :04:13.so important for wildlife, we need water. What can we do about it?
:04:13. > :04:19.Well, what they've done is create a network of lagoons to help
:04:19. > :04:24.safeguard one of the most important wildfowl sanctuaries in Britain.
:04:24. > :04:32.With this new system, we have a water control, we can release water.
:04:32. > :04:38.For example, it is a little high in this lagoon, so I can release some
:04:38. > :04:42.water, as you can see it flows nicely away. At the same time, once
:04:42. > :04:46.it is going, we can let a little more water into the reservoir.
:04:46. > :04:51.important is that to the wildlife? Absolutely critical. If we didn't
:04:51. > :04:53.have the shallower areas, we would not have any birds. Ingenuity may
:04:54. > :04:56.save the birds and some gardeners like Anne Cornwell, from Sibbertoft
:04:57. > :05:01.near Market Harborough, are also finding novel ways to get round the
:05:01. > :05:11.hosepipe ban imposed by Anglian Water. She's discovered a long
:05:11. > :05:13.
:05:13. > :05:18.forgotten well. We suddenly thought about it last week. We are very
:05:18. > :05:22.keen gardeners, we have a look, and there is ten feet of water, we are
:05:22. > :05:25.getting a pump and we can water the garden. John's neighbours in the
:05:25. > :05:34.next village aren't banned from using their hose pipes because
:05:34. > :05:42.they're supplied by Severn Trent - who're staying calm. We are not in
:05:42. > :05:47.a crisis situation at the moment, we have enough suppliers to keep
:05:48. > :05:54.our customers and suppliers. can that confidence last? I've come
:05:54. > :06:04.to Waltham on the Wolds - on a water hunt. It around here
:06:04. > :06:11.somewhere. If we had to that field, we can find it. -- if we head.
:06:11. > :06:15.is it. This is the borehole. We used it to measure the water level
:06:15. > :06:19.in the ground. Over half the water used in the East Midlands comes
:06:19. > :06:22.from natural reserves trapped in rocks beneath our feet. We had to
:06:22. > :06:32.lower the camera down a good ten meters to find water after a normal
:06:32. > :06:33.
:06:33. > :06:42.winter rainfall they'd expect it be five meters below the ground.
:06:42. > :06:47.are just approaching the water level. There are tears. That really
:06:47. > :06:55.tells a story, doesn't it? It does. We would expected to be much higher
:06:55. > :06:58.at this time of year. It is a real worry. -- we would expect it.
:06:58. > :07:02.drought is now even threatening to dry up parts of the holiday
:07:02. > :07:05.business here on the canal in Leicestershire. British Waterways
:07:05. > :07:15.is limiting the use of the historic flight of locks at Foxton and
:07:15. > :07:17.
:07:17. > :07:21.shutting a section of the canal near Leicester. It comes on the
:07:21. > :07:29.back of one of the driest years on record, it has also been followed
:07:29. > :07:33.by a very dry winter last year, so our reservoirs a mate all-time low.
:07:34. > :07:37.-- are at an all-time low. Saddington reservoir, which feeds
:07:37. > :07:40.water into this stretch of canal, is less than half full. And it's
:07:40. > :07:46.all very worrying for those who rely on the canal for trade -
:07:47. > :07:51.particularly those who recall the drought of 1976. This isn't the
:07:51. > :07:57.first time he'd had to overcome the drought, and dry weather. How bad
:07:57. > :08:03.we are things here in 1976? water ran out. People were walking
:08:03. > :08:08.across the bed of the canal. We had no boats through all here. We
:08:08. > :08:11.sincerely hope that won't happen. The spectre of the drought of '76
:08:11. > :08:13.was often raised while we were making this filmM but those, like
:08:13. > :08:23.this Leicestershire farmer, with a long enough memory insisted 1959
:08:23. > :08:32.
:08:32. > :08:42.was just as bad. We were the driest part of the country. All the old
:08:42. > :08:42.
:08:42. > :08:47.people can tell you that. 1959 was the driest year about. Attention
:08:47. > :08:54.please, attention please! This is a warning. Water suppliers are
:08:54. > :08:59.dangerously low. -- suppliers. Alarming, but this man's not
:08:59. > :09:01.worried. Barry Lewis has just planted two acres of vines here in
:09:01. > :09:11.Derbyshire, he believes Brackenfield could become the next
:09:11. > :09:14.
:09:14. > :09:19.Bordeaux. And the drought? Well that's just perfect. Derbyshire's
:09:19. > :09:26.officially in the crowds and, that's good news for you? It is.
:09:26. > :09:34.Once these have vines are established, a warm, dry, sunny
:09:34. > :09:42.conditions are what we need. Is it similar to champagne in France?
:09:42. > :09:46.We are now producing some of the best sparkling wines in the world.
:09:46. > :09:49.Great Eastern vineyards? Exactly. Well, the first wine from Barry's
:09:49. > :09:52.vineyard won't be available until next year and while we're hoping
:09:52. > :10:02.the drought doesn't last let's have a toast to one success story.
:10:02. > :10:04.
:10:04. > :10:06.Cheers Barry, and good luck. Later on we'll have a full weather
:10:06. > :10:16.forecast from Anna and David Whiteley heads to southern Europe
:10:16. > :10:23.
:10:23. > :10:28.where they know a thing or two about droughts.
:10:28. > :10:33.What options do we have it there is a third a dry winter? There are no
:10:33. > :10:36.shortage of people offering advice, but do we have a strategy in place?
:10:37. > :10:44.We asked that David Whiteley to investigate, and he started in a
:10:44. > :10:52.part of the world where they are used to dry conditions, that may
:10:52. > :10:59.give us a lead on how to do with it. -- deal with it.
:10:59. > :11:02.This church has been hair in this northern Valley of southern Spain
:11:02. > :11:11.for over 300 years. I shouldn't be able to be here, this is usually
:11:11. > :11:14.the bottom of a reservoir. The reason it's so dry is that Spain is
:11:14. > :11:22.going through its worst drought by over 70 years. Reservoirs are
:11:22. > :11:27.drying out, and forest fires have been raging. The cabbie's waterline,
:11:27. > :11:35.look how we should be, Adam Werritty is -- look at the water
:11:35. > :11:40.line, that is where we should be, and this is verities. Incredible.
:11:40. > :11:50.Four years ago, the situation got so bad, the taps in Barcelona
:11:50. > :11:55.almost ran dry. They were forced to shipping suppliers. It -- the
:11:55. > :11:59.residents have had to completely change their attitude to water.
:11:59. > :12:08.Quite incredible that something as simple as water had to be
:12:08. > :12:11.transferred in up to Barcelona in tankers? What was that like?
:12:11. > :12:17.Luckily never have to be carried through on a massive scale. Before
:12:17. > :12:23.that, there was a realisation that it was not going to be easy. People
:12:23. > :12:33.would have to have water rationed. How have you adapted your lifestyle
:12:33. > :12:36.
:12:36. > :12:41.in the current climb that? change our habits. The children
:12:41. > :12:51.talk about it a lot at school. They have an easier time adapting to
:12:51. > :12:53.
:12:53. > :12:58.A through simple measures, such as turning of tubs, having timed
:12:58. > :13:04.showers and conservation lessons in schools, this is one of the world's
:13:04. > :13:09.a leading City in saving water. People here use just 107 litres a-
:13:09. > :13:14.day compared to 150 in the UK. Across the city, they have also
:13:14. > :13:17.tried using water from showers to flush toilets as well as a cycling
:13:17. > :13:23.the water in Barcelona's famous fountains.
:13:23. > :13:26.This isn't the last time Barcelona has faced drought but that
:13:26. > :13:34.experience four years ago forced everyone to change the way they
:13:34. > :13:40.think about water on every level. And this place was the answer. They
:13:40. > :13:45.build this massive plant and it is the largest in Europe. By taking
:13:45. > :13:50.the water from the Mediterranean, the plant can produce 180 million
:13:50. > :13:54.litres of fresh water every day but that is still only a 5th of the
:13:55. > :14:00.city's needs so it is used as a stop-gap when the reservoirs are
:14:00. > :14:04.low. The system is much more secure
:14:04. > :14:08.because of this plant but this is not total security. The plant
:14:08. > :14:15.allows us time to function between rainy periods. If there is a
:14:15. > :14:20.drought, the plant can produce more. After a building Europe's first
:14:20. > :14:25.plant 40 years ago, Spain is now a world leader in desalination
:14:25. > :14:29.technology but it is not a perfect solution. The water produced here
:14:29. > :14:34.is very expensive and the plant uses enough energy to power a small
:14:34. > :14:38.town. Unlike Spain which uses most of its water for Agriculture, this
:14:38. > :14:44.is where we use most of ours, generating electricity in power
:14:44. > :14:52.stations. Most of the rest, around 40%, is used in homes and gardens.
:14:52. > :14:57.The trouble is we used to much. As head of water resources, it is
:14:57. > :15:02.Trevor Bishop's job to try and find a solution. Is turning salt water
:15:02. > :15:06.into freshwater the answer? We are already got a desalination
:15:06. > :15:10.plant near London and that will be very important in safeguarding
:15:10. > :15:17.water it to London. The likelihood of seeing more of those plants in
:15:17. > :15:22.England is quite high but you don't want to rely on the celebration --
:15:22. > :15:27.desalination. We are at this picturesque location
:15:27. > :15:33.in Wiltshire. Water gets moved here. Is that an option, to transfer
:15:33. > :15:37.water to try parts of the country? Absolutely. The Victorians started
:15:37. > :15:44.transferring water and it underpins the way we manage water. Manchester
:15:44. > :15:48.is supplied by water from the Lake District. Moving water around more
:15:48. > :15:52.in the future is going to be part of the answer but not the whole
:15:52. > :15:57.answer. The buzzword is connectivity. Are
:15:57. > :16:02.we talking about a National Grid of water? We did get blacker as in
:16:02. > :16:05.other parts of the country when we are talking about electricity so
:16:05. > :16:09.why have restrictions on water in one part of the country and not
:16:09. > :16:14.enough for? We are not talking about a National
:16:14. > :16:17.Grid in the same way. Water is heavy expensive to move. If you
:16:17. > :16:21.move water from the north to the south of England, you can have
:16:22. > :16:28.drought in the North of England and you don't want to rely on
:16:28. > :16:33.exclusively moving water a. If desalination has problems and we
:16:33. > :16:37.shouldn't rely on moving water, what if we have a third dry winter?
:16:37. > :16:44.Difficult to see but we would be in a bad place. I don't think we have
:16:44. > :16:47.ever worked out the consequences of the three dry winters in a row. You
:16:47. > :16:52.would be expecting measures to conserve water that would be quite
:16:52. > :16:58.dramatic. They would be standpipes in the streets. Water supply is
:16:58. > :17:04.would be turned off and people would have to take buckets to
:17:04. > :17:08.standpipes. As far as I'm aware, there is no strategic national plan
:17:08. > :17:13.to deal with three dry winters in a row. I would like to be proven
:17:13. > :17:18.wrong and I'd like to think we had a plan but I don't know what form.
:17:18. > :17:21.I think our plan is based on hope that it rains and hope is a very
:17:21. > :17:28.poor strategy for dealing with a risky and important Business.
:17:28. > :17:35.Is there a strategy or not? Caroline Spelman is the environment
:17:35. > :17:38.so minister. We need a strategy. Drought can
:17:38. > :17:43.occur any time. We have been planning for this and we are
:17:43. > :17:47.putting in place measures to deal with that. Things like Temporary
:17:48. > :17:52.Restrictions on non- essential uses of water in a domestic setting is
:17:52. > :17:56.something we plan to do in order to conserve water and make sure we
:17:56. > :18:00.don't have to move to more stringent restrictions later.
:18:00. > :18:04.Free 0.3 billion litres of water, a quarter of our or water, is lost
:18:04. > :18:09.every day. Do you think that is acceptable?
:18:09. > :18:12.We need to encourage the water companies to reduce leakage. The
:18:12. > :18:19.Government has made that clear. Shouldn't the targets be more
:18:19. > :18:22.stringent.? Germany only lose 10% of their water.
:18:22. > :18:27.The targets are a challenge for the industry to meet.
:18:27. > :18:31.The government is also pushing water companies to do more to
:18:31. > :18:34.connect suppliers across the country. Caroline Spelman says we
:18:34. > :18:38.need to think differently about the what are we use.
:18:38. > :18:43.When you go to a dry country and you explain to them, in a country
:18:43. > :18:48.like ours, we used drinking water for everything. We wash our clothes
:18:48. > :18:52.and flush the toilet and wash up with drinking water. Sometimes they
:18:52. > :18:56.are surprised by that. Can you guarantee that if we get a
:18:56. > :18:59.third dry winter, we won't have water rationing and standpipes in
:18:59. > :19:03.these do? And not deluded into thinking I can
:19:03. > :19:10.tell you how much rain we are going to get and it is too early to tell
:19:10. > :19:14.yet whether we Barwick -- are going to have the wet winter any -- we
:19:14. > :19:17.need. It is unlikely we have standpipes this year but if we have
:19:17. > :19:23.another dry winter, that becomes more likely.
:19:23. > :19:27.Given the recent heavy rain and fled in the UK, standpipes may
:19:27. > :19:31.sound extraordinary. As they have discovered in Spain, the world is
:19:32. > :19:35.changing. Climate change and an expanding population mean demand
:19:35. > :19:40.for water is set to increase and even if the rains to come this
:19:40. > :19:49.winter, we will have to start thinking of drinking water as the
:19:49. > :19:53.precious and scarce natural So what is going on with the
:19:53. > :19:56.weather and Al water supply? We live in a country where complaining
:19:56. > :20:02.about the rain is a national pastime. Despite downpours, we have
:20:02. > :20:12.still got a drug. How serious is his? Meteorologist Nik Miller takes
:20:12. > :20:26.
:20:26. > :20:32.a trip across England and explores The Lake District is England's
:20:32. > :20:37.wettest place and the word drought is the last thing that comes to
:20:37. > :20:46.mind. The reservoirs are filled with millions of litres of water so
:20:46. > :20:51.with all of this, how come so much of England is in cloud? The Met
:20:52. > :20:56.Office is now looking into what is behind this change in climate. The
:20:56. > :21:02.first place they are looking is the jet stream, which brings weather
:21:02. > :21:05.fronts across the Atlantic. It is placed that bit further north.
:21:05. > :21:09.Went those weather fronts are pushing into the part of England
:21:09. > :21:14.that is so short of rainfall at the moment, they are running into high
:21:14. > :21:18.pressure so not doing the job we want them to do, which is to top up
:21:18. > :21:22.water levels. At this time of year, we are
:21:22. > :21:26.competing with nature for water. Everything around us is embarked
:21:26. > :21:32.with spring growth. He don't get England's green and pleasant land
:21:32. > :21:36.without it. As everything is turning green, what you don't see
:21:36. > :21:40.in some parts of the country is even more important and that is
:21:40. > :21:47.underground. It is the water underground, not reservoirs, that
:21:47. > :21:51.supply is 75% of the most populated parts of England. 150 miles south-
:21:51. > :21:56.east of Windermere and I am in a drought territory in the East
:21:56. > :22:01.Midlands. I'm visiting the National Geological Survey in grafting them
:22:01. > :22:05.where they are monitoring England's groundwater -- in Nottingham. They
:22:05. > :22:15.have created an underground map of Britain.
:22:15. > :22:17.
:22:17. > :22:20.The areas in green Broad Chalke -- I'll talk. It is a really important
:22:20. > :22:25.aqueduct and that only gets to be charged with rainfall in winter and
:22:25. > :22:28.we have had two relatively dry winters so we haven't had the
:22:28. > :22:32.recharge we would expect. Groundwater levels have remained
:22:32. > :22:38.normal in the north-west but have - - as the move south-east, the drop
:22:38. > :22:42.in volume by a third. In the last couple of years, only four months
:22:42. > :22:51.have been significantly wetter than normal, including the a poor just
:22:51. > :22:59.gone. -- the April. To find out how low our ground stocks are, I joined
:22:59. > :23:03.Andy Mackenzie and his team to do a survey. You are seeing very dry
:23:03. > :23:07.walls to the borehole. If there was the charge happening a tall, you
:23:07. > :23:11.would see Mr. The walls would be glistening
:23:11. > :23:15.slightly but they are not. Even though it has been pouring
:23:15. > :23:21.with rain, that rain down here hasn't made a jot of difference?
:23:21. > :23:29.It hasn't. It would take weeks, probably months for the water to
:23:29. > :23:35.infiltrate if it did. It will get taken up by the plot on.
:23:35. > :23:39.That is the surface of the water. 34.4. How does it compare to how it
:23:39. > :23:48.has been before? This is the 5th or 6th driest we
:23:48. > :23:54.have seen it in April. It is pretty low. The my last major drought was
:23:54. > :23:58.in 1976. Now we are saying save water.
:23:58. > :24:06.People were forced to get their water from standpipes. The Stroud
:24:06. > :24:14.is different. It has been pouring with rain but we have been told to
:24:14. > :24:24.expect drought until Christmas. We have had one of of wettest April
:24:24. > :24:25.
:24:25. > :24:32.swith for Reading but that rain still hasn't reached the aquifers.
:24:32. > :24:36.-- one of the wettest April stop this is in aquifer operated by
:24:36. > :24:43.South East Water, supplying 2.1 million customers from pumping
:24:43. > :24:47.stations like this one. That is the precious water. How low of the
:24:47. > :24:54.aquifers? We have a say it -- a serious
:24:54. > :24:59.situation and aquifers are very low. We see the rivers with high levels
:24:59. > :25:02.and think everything is OK but that is not the case. We are seeing all
:25:02. > :25:07.time low levels. The pumps are at levels they have never been to
:25:07. > :25:13.before. That means it is look worse than
:25:13. > :25:18.1976? I think it is. It is more
:25:18. > :25:22.widespread across regions and our greatest fear is a third dry winter.
:25:22. > :25:27.The level of recharge in our groundwater is a third lower than
:25:27. > :25:31.it should be half did two dry winters. We have come a long way
:25:31. > :25:36.from the Lake District and it seems we are further from that soaking
:25:36. > :25:41.rain that has been falling above ground. Down here, it is winter
:25:41. > :25:51.rain that matters and if we don't get enough next winter, we are all
:25:51. > :25:59.
:26:00. > :26:03.Let's have a summary of what we can expect over the next few days. It
:26:03. > :26:08.will come as no surprise that we had record-breaking rainfall
:26:08. > :26:14.through April. The greatest in the UK since records began and in the
:26:14. > :26:19.East Midlands, we broke the previous record for recording
:26:20. > :26:24.nearly three times the average brain. It has led to a number of
:26:24. > :26:28.local rivers flooding and how can we have flood warnings when we are
:26:28. > :26:38.at under drought restrictions? Let's take a look at the rain fall
:26:38. > :26:39.
:26:39. > :26:45.You can see the past two dry winters. You may be looking at your
:26:45. > :26:49.gardens and thinking, I have plenty of water here. After a two very dry
:26:49. > :26:53.winters, the ground is so dry that the rain is either sitting on top
:26:53. > :26:59.or running straight into our rivers and the little rain that makes its
:26:59. > :27:03.way into the soil is being used up by thirsty plants. Eventually, some
:27:03. > :27:08.of the rain will make its way to groundwater level but it will take
:27:08. > :27:15.considerable rain for some time to get us back for where we should be.
:27:15. > :27:19.How does this compare to 1976? That at the time followed the driest 16
:27:19. > :27:23.months for 250 years but it would then followed by a year of above
:27:23. > :27:26.average rainfall. After the April average rainfall. After the April
:27:26. > :27:31.we have had, can we expect something similar? We will have to
:27:31. > :27:35.wait and see. Let us look at the weather for the rest of the week.
:27:35. > :27:41.It will get colder with temperatures coming down into
:27:41. > :27:45.single figures. We can expect some more rain making its way in tonight.
:27:45. > :27:53.We have a yellow weather warning in force because it looks heavy across
:27:53. > :27:57.Leicestershire across the early That covers the southern half of
:27:57. > :28:01.the UK before it moves north during the in the hours of Thursday and
:28:01. > :28:06.that is when it becomes heavy. We currently have a lot of cloud which
:28:06. > :28:11.will increase overnight. The rain arrives to into the southern half
:28:11. > :28:16.of the region with temperatures dipping to six Celsius. The rain
:28:16. > :28:21.moves north through the date on Thursday, slowly starting to break
:28:21. > :28:26.up and it becomes lighter. Temperatures struggling. A high of
:28:27. > :28:31.12 Celsius. On Friday we can expect a little bit of rain with cold air