Water shortage? What water shortage?

摘要

Regarding Paul Street's recent viewpoint (NCE 26 September), where did the UK's increased water demand come from? The 1990 Water Facts reported public water supplied in England and Wales as rising from just over 10,000M litres/day in 1961, through 14,904M.l/day in 1974 to 17,243M.l/day in 1989/90. We now know that those figures were not particularly robust but by 1996-97 the Environment Agency (then the National Rivers Authority) reported a distribution input of 16,366 M.l/d.