Dr. Paul Leinster, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency has called for consideration to be given to the introduction of multi-pipe water supply systems in the UK to maximise the efficient use of water.

Speaking at the Institute of Water’s annual conference last week, Dr.Leinster warned that by 2050 national river flows could be 50% to 80% lower than today.  Bringing about behaviour change would have less impact than design change e.g. washing machines and other household technologies becoming more water-efficient.  There was now a need to think in terms of a closed loop system as opposed to the supply, use, and discard of water, and to think more about using discharges as a resource.  Dr. Leinster raised the question of whether the future would encompass  a four to five pipe supply system e.g. potable water, rainwater, greywater, blackwater and wastewater.

Commenting on the proposal, Martin Baggs of Thames Water made the interesting point that the water companies currently had no jurisdiction to impose solutions on systems that are already in place, suggesting that the water sector should be a statutory consultee on planning applications.

In response to the comment by Marion Spain, Director of Policy and communication at Ofwat, that “if it’s what the customers want, it’s what the developers will provide”, Dr. Leinster highlighted an attempt by Cambridge Water to try to get developers of one building project to install a multi-pipe system. The developers were unwilling to incorporate  such a system because of the cost implications. Dr. Leinster said that because installation of multi-pipe systems was seen primarily in terms of a cost driver, an underpinning regulatory driver would be needed to kick-start the process.

He went on to suggest that water quality itself could become the key limiter in terms of new planning developments, rather than availability of water resources. Currently some 1000 water bodies (about 12%) of water supplies in England had river flows that do not support good ecological status. The requirements of the Water Framework Directive had now significantly raised the bar by providing for 37 parameters on the basis of “one out, all out”.

Dr. Leinster also suggested that water only needed to be the required quality for the intended purpose and said that the Agency was looking at the possibility of whether it could come up with measures to improve water quality based on several of the parameters as opposed to all.