Rivers Left “Crying Out For Water”, Because Of Climate Change
By Paul Homewood
h/t Dave Ward
More alarmism from the EDP:
Generations ago, families swam in the Little Ouse by the Nuns’ Bridges in Thetford in the summer.
Now you can almost walk across its dry bed without getting your feet wet, as the flow falls to a trickle.
A level gauge at Abbey Heath shows the river is running at a level of 0.106m – below its usual lowest ebb of 0.13m.
"This is climate change and it’s going to get worse," said Clare Higson, who is part of the Thetford River Group which looks after the town’s waterways. "This is the river crying out I need water."
Hotter, drier summers are forecast in what is already one of the driest regions in the country. East Anglia averages 630mm a year, almost half the national average of 1,163mm.
https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/why-is-little-ouse-in-thetford-so-low-9131120#r3z-addoor
Needless to say, this has nothing to do with climate change, nor is East Anglia getting drier. On the contrary, there are no long term trends in rainfall, either annually or in summer months:
As the EDP headline suggests, the real problem is abstraction.
The average water use per person per day in the Anglian Water region is 146 litres. This is nearly double the consumption of 85 litres in 1960.
To add to the problem is the population increase over the years. Norfolk’s population, for example, has grown by a fifth just since 1991:
Given that East Anglia is the driest region of the country, it is inevitable that water supplies are tight.
The locals know what the real issue is:
And as usual, the EDP’s readers don’t buy into the garbage printed:
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Does nobody remember the prolonged hot summer droughts of 1975 and 1976?
Was just thinking that myself! I recall the river Darent near me in kent completely dried up for a time but it was back for the autumn.
I well remember the plight of the Thames in 1976.
I moved to South Shropshire in 1987 and, in 89 the river Teme was bone dry above Leintwardine for the whole of the summer – plus cs change…….
Not forgetting 1995!
Yup, melting tar for several days during peak daytime temperatures; Denis Howell alleviated the drought by accepting his appointment by HM. Subsequent to these hot summers, I can periods in summers that were – to my minds eye – just as hot if not as prolonged so the impact was lessened. Short memory syndrome means that some people have forgotten the previous at least 2 years when arable/food farming was impacted severely because of very wet planting seasons – take a look at arable etc fields near you, full of corn, wheat, barley, grass for hay, maize, linseed etc etc – need a bit more night time rain but in much better shape than the last two years or so and befitting from warm days and nights?
Perhaps it’s time for another Minister for Drought. I seem to recall that within weeks of Howell’s appointment the rivers were full again. If that’s all it takes it had better be at the top of the new PM’s ‘to do’ list!
Good to see Feargal Sharkey speaking out – a fly fisherman who understands the impact of water abstraction and sewage release into rivers. Celebrity anglers seem to be blessed with common sense and understand the root of the problem.
Looking at the first photo, I notice a stone bridge. In the town where I live, there is one too. Here, the bridge was built between 1761 and 1811. At 168 meters length, it is the longest stone bridge in Sweden, constructed with 12 vaults made of granite. Just next to it, downstream, there is an long island made of sand. It didn’t exist before the creation of the bridge.
https://www.google.com/maps/@59.3849665,13.5185689,15z/data=!3m1!1e3
(
The stone bridge is directly west of the island.)
So I suspect the photo is taken downstream of the bridge and it caused all the sand to remain there. Is it different upstreams? If so, no doubt.
Agreed. Additionally, had they taken their picture from the other side, it wouldn’t have been particularly dramatic.
Here, there is a ‘side’ story [pun intended]. The river of concern (Klarälven/”Clear River”) has an long history of being used for transporting logs and at the time, the different local authorities kept the river clear of sandbanks and things. When the railways finally took over the transports, logging stopped, but the authorities still continued to dredge until sometime in the 1990s. Subsequently, [huge] sandbanks have formed and these have caused the water pressure against the river banks to increase, including that the results of the spring rivers have become more severe. The latter is explained by the authorities as ‘due to climate change’, despite the fact that it is due to lack of maintenance by the very same authorities … After all, the town is located in a river delta and those changes over time. If not maintained to protect buildings etc, the river will have its way …
Was Samuel Taylor Coleridge familiar with Swedish?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
Read with a modern eye the poem seems strangely prophetic.
https://poets.org/poem/kubla-khan
Here is a water story I just found regarding the Isle of Wight and an intact, wooden Middle Stone Age structure now 36 feet under water; from 8,000 years ago.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/wooden-platform-isle-of-wight-07515.html
This site – ship building – would have been active near meltwater pulse 1C (8,200-7,600 years ago). (My guess – don’t quote me.)
Assuming I have the right bridge, use Google Earth and “street view” from
59°23’1.30″N, 13°30’48.63″E
Nice bridge!
That headline employed something known to botanists as “teleology”. When I was in graduate school, it would have gotten you smacked down quickly. In a nutshell, teleology is ascribing human attributes to non-human entities.
“River left ‘crying out for water’ because of climate change and abstraction” is a cringe-worthy example of an inanimate object being ascribed with human thought.
Happy Monday, Joan.
At USC, they taught us that teleology was “ascribing actions as to purpose.” E.g., omosis is the diffusion of water through a semipermeable membrane in order to establish equilibrium.
“In order to establish equilibrium” not being a force.
Anthropomorphism is ascribing human characteristics to non humans.
It always makes me smile when I read idiot greens prattle on about “anthropomorphic” (instead of anthropogenic) climate change.
Correct: “the tree roots grew towards the stream because the tree knew it needed water”….. The more moist soil towards the stream allowed roots to grow in that direction, etc. The tree had no thought or purpose in the matter.
After further review, I say there is some teleology in the article, the attribution to climate change.
Climate is the generalized weather of an area or region. For a climate to change, its weather must change. They are saying that the weather is changing because the weather is changing.
Climate is a RESULT, it cannot be a cause.
The same is true of the mis-using of the term “ecology”. It is the relationship to the environment, no matter what the environment is. And the environment is what is….
When I began grad school in fall 1966, no one outside the field knew the terms “ecology” or “environment”. Come to think of it, not much has changed.
And, no the river did not cry out for lack of water, the author cried out for his own emotion which he attributed to the river which has no thought or purpose in the matter.
Yep. Ecology is the study of organisms and their relationship with their environment.
“It’s bad for the ecology” means it’s bad for the study of . . . .
bbc radio this morning, an article about grey squirrels and attempts to cull the population with contraceptive paste on nuts. They still managed to get ‘climate change’ into the diatribe. Wife wasn’t happy with my explosion of expletives. Unbelievable!
The BBC/Guardian axis of evil just couldn’t fail to put a spin on the subject.
“The grey squirrel is an invasive species that is causing untold damage in the British countryside, where these pests continue to wreck our fledgling broadleaf trees like oak by stripping bark and disrupting the delicate balance of nature and biodiversity, whilst diminishing our ability to tackle climate change.”
A new slogan for climate change activists. “Kill the squirrels and save the planet”
Termites release a lot of greenhouse gases, as much as humanity.
So, save the planet. Kill all the termites.
JF
“The delicate balance of nature.”
The ignorant cry of city-dwellers.
The “balance” is constantly disrupted by nature and always has been. Natural variability in weather does it all the time. In SW France we had a very late very cold period that appears to have killed off most of the usually very abundant lizards we get. Not sure if it’s a consequence but we have a very impressive butterfly population this year instead. Our bird population changes each year depending on the available food too. Nature only remains “in balance” if humans maintain the balance artificially.
Ive controlled the squirrel plague here with judicious shooting. Now the plague is a deer popn explosion. Not just muncjack but also Roe now. Shot a muncjack on sunday after the dogs brought it down, but I really didnt want to spend a hot sunday morning on butchery. Such is the penance to pay on a sunday.
silly season kicking off early – these twits seem to be wearing disposable plastic overalls? – or are eco-overalls a thing?
They’re also crying a river about the Po drought in Italy. Blaming CO2 is absurd. ‘Unprecedented’ blah blah…
‘Meuccio Berselli, General Secretary of the Po River Basin Authority, said: “We have to accelerate the green transition process.
“It’s something we should not debate anymore, everyone knows it exists.
“Next year could be even worse as our research tells us temperatures are set to increase and droughts like this latest one could potentially last longer than usual”.’
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/07/08/unprecedented-drought-in-italy-sparks-fears-about-future
How many weeks is it since the last news reports on flooding of the Po.
@stew; About this time last year.
https://nypost.com/2021/07/29/george-clooney-caught-in-floods-that-hit-northern-italy/
Amusingly they all wear clothes refined from the petrochemical industry, not a Harris tweed suit in sight!
Here in the South West we have each been asked to save 5 Litres per day by the water board. The reason? so there is enough for tourists!
as most of us detest the annual influx of self regarding and arrogant tourists who think they can do what they want whilst driving locals out of rental homes via air b’n b, I am sure most of us will be using more water in the hope that turists will go home early
Grockles please, not tourists.
Or emmets. Also an emetic…
grockles in Devon, emmets in Cornwall.
unfortunately with the chaos at the airports it seems likely that more will be back this summer than was anticipated. As so many locals have been driven put of their rented property through air bnb many cafes and tourist attractions will have restricted hours due to staff shortages.
What absurd, self-regarding arrogant bigotry. Other people can’t use their property as they want because you don’t like it. Yet you think it’s the tourists that are bad? Try running your economy without tourists. See what happens tohouses when all the young people leave because there’s no jobs. Rural depopulation isn’t pretty but you somehow think you can maintain all the good stuff but not have the awful people who pay for it.
It will all be sorted when we go back to tilling the soil by hand.
I am hoping that a prolonged dry spell will bring forth a new crop of aerial photographs of deserted villages, medieval chapels, Roman forts and iron age hill forts etc as happened a few years ago.
Here is a water story I just found regarding the Isle of Wight and an intact, wooden Middle Stone Age structure now 36 feet under water; from 8,000 years ago.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/wooden-platform-isle-of-wight-07515.html
This site – ship building – would have been active near meltwater pulse 1C (8,200-7,600 years ago). (My guess – don’t quote me.)
Last reservoir was built in 1991 and since then the population has increased by 14 million.
IIRC it was the EU that discouraged/banned the building of more reservoirs and insisted that any water shortage was dealt with by demand management
In Imperial measures the water level has dropped from just over 5 inches to just over 4 inches. The real cause for the level dropping is all those swimmers getting out of the river and forgetting to wring their towels out and top up the river.
I think this explanation is as likely as the “official” one.
Nothing to do with the water being extracted upstream at Rushford and exported to the rapidly expanding Cambridge hub and its suburbs?
JF
Two problems, Abstraction and storage reservoir capacity or lack of it. Yorks water are making noises and threats but I clearly remember this spring, rivers, Don, Calder, Aire, Wharfe, Derwent, Ouse were at peak overflow. Indeed, we have enough rain and has been mentioned (above). What goes unnoticed and unsaid, UK infrastructure was built for a population of circa 55 million and now grown to even on their own figures (if you believe them) to nearly 70 millions, likely much much higher than that, small wonder water supplies are threatened even with the merest hint of ‘drought’.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-62119835
But Kielder, has the pipeline become blocked?
What are the biggest dangers to mankind? Reliance on electricity derived from water power and the underuse of carbon fuels to provide the power needed to run a modern day society. Whoever owns the head waters has the biggest sway. If you are downstream tough. The restraining of the flow of rivers with dams to generate electricity, is a cause for war. In many situations it is the ruination of ethnicities and the prevention of hitherto reliable runs of spawning fish coming from the sea. In America, circular fields are dragging massive amounts of water from aquafers without a thought for tomorrow. The export of water, in crops, is imperilling local populations.
In Britain, it is massive population expansion. Once, Britain maintained her population equilibrium through migration of its people, a natural mechanism that allowed the under employed to find work elsewhere in the developing world. Today, largely for strategic reasons and the false price of commodities, we import increasing numbers of people allowing manufactures to ignore modern innovation and they wonder why our productivity is rock bottom?
Instead we have substituted outward migration to inward migration and the government has been shipping people to already spoiled, grim surroundings where they institute vast settlement within Britain. These grim places then do not recover from the scenic, the poverty penalties incurred in the coal, coke, smelting eras. The state then prides itself that it has settled people while ignoring the social problems they have created; bring into being racial equality and its off-shoots, meddle with race crime and ultimately show a preference for the immigrant over the indigenous through discriminatory measures. But the social contraption is also ever-increasing numbers (population growth here was 6% in the last ten years).
No wonder there are problems with sewage and potable water. Recently, a resort town in England asked its council tax payers not to use their showers as the water was needed for the annual influx of holiday makers. To take a bath anywhere in Britain signifies a middle class income. While we get warnings about health if we have a couple of days of hot weather no one mentions the continual and increasingly difficult finding and funding of water, bien pensant group think.
Around the world electricity, for one, but also drinking water, the maintenance of watercourses and the loss of control over rainfall (loss of useful domestic water in floods). Carbon fuels are finite. There will have to be innovations in the decades to come to find a motive power that will serve humans cheaply and reliably. Water, a source that we probably thought was inexhaustible, is now being overly prescribed leading to a condition whereby the most intimate functions of mankind will be threatened by its scarcity, while we have decades of carbon deposits that would save the precious commodity, allow for natural systems to work, prevent war and over-lordship, maintain human functioning and deliver the land to a real strategic resource of inestimable value, farming.
If you let all sorts of trash into this country illegally and fail to provide increased infrastructure then it is no surprise that the water supply does not cope during dry spells.
How many water resevoirs have been constructed in East Anglia and the SouthEast of England in the past two decades.