Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
with customers and regulators again as, for
example, will occur when the competitive
separation of potable and waste water sides of the
business results in sub-optimal environmental
management.
The companies will be forced towards a
changed social and environmental attitude.
Already the courts have ruled against prepayment
meters, an implicit recognition of the fundamental
importance of water. The companies would be
wise to evaluate carefully winners and losers
before embarking on any development and
expansion of the metering programme. Whether
or not the companies are provided with funding
from Ofwat via 'K', the Environment Agency can
require environmental improvements. During the
present period, the agency was finding its feet as
an organisation with enlarged responsibilities.
Over the next few years, it will concentrate more
effectively on discharging its considerable
responsibilities. In the face of company
intransigence in the past regarding such issues as
low flows, the companies should now anticipate a
revisiting of Abstraction Licences and Consents to
Discharge.
Although still secondary to engineering, the
applied geographer has a significant and growing
role in both research and application for
improved water supply and management. That
role peaks where there is a direct industry contact
with the environment or clients or where there
is strong spatial element of analysis. Geographers
have contributed to the understanding of
processes that modify raw water quality and to
the interventions, such as land-use change, that
promote improved water quality. Applied
geography has helped to analyse in a spatial sense
the demand for potable waters in the industrial
and domestic sectors and the contribution of
leakage and conservation to the overall water
balance. In turn, such work has laid the
foundations for evaluations of the sustainability
of water management strategies and for the
determination of ecological footprints for water
resource activities. Progress to a more sustainable
water system will without doubt draw applied
geography to contribute further to resolution of
the challenges that face the water industry in the
next millennium.
GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
As we appproach the millennium, we must accept
that more information is appearing daily on the
web. For relatively recent information on the views
of the key government agencies controlling water
supply and management in the UK, review the web
pages listed below. The director general of Ofwat is
already using the web as a vehicle for dissemination
of his possible views on financial regulation.
Department of the Environment, Transport and the
Regions— http://www.environment.detr.gov.uk
Environment Agency— http://www.environment-
agency.gov.uk
Open Government— http://www.open.gov.uk
Ofwat— http://www.open.gov.uk/ofwat
REFERENCES
McDonald, A. and Kay, D. (1988)
Water Resources Issues and
Strategies
. Longman: Harlow, UK.
Clarke, G.P., Kashti, A., McDonald, A.T. and Williamson, P.
(1997) Estimating small area demand for water: a new
methodology.
Journal of the Chartered Institute for Water
and Environmental Management
11, 186-92.
Herrington, P. (1996)
Climate Change and the Demand for
Water.
Department of the Environment. HMSO.
Lambert, A. (1994) Accounting for the losses: the burst and
background concept.
Journal of the Institution of Water
and Environmental Management
8, 205-14.
Likeman, M.J., Field, S.R., Stevens, I.M. and Fleming, S.E.
(1995) Applications of resource technology in
Yorkshire.
British Hydrological Society Proceedings of the
5th National Hydrology Symposium.
Mitchell, G. (1990) Natural discolouration of freshwater:
chemical composition and environmental genesis.
Progress in Physical Geography
14, 317-34.
Mitchell, G. and McDonald, A.T. (1995) Catchment
characterisation as a tool for upland water quality
management.
Journal of Environmental Management
44,
83-95.
Ofwat (1996)
1996-97 Report on the Tariff Structure and
Charges.
Office of Water Services, Birmingham, 72 pp.
