It is only recently that our modern society has become sufficiently aware of environmental issues to understand that the basic prerequisites for life that we have long enjoyed as free or minimally priced resources are actually “commodities” that require careful management. Upon reflection, one can see that the most used of these are water and air – but with widespread conservational management still far from comprehensive, it is now quite obvious how abuse and pollution has been encouraged due to their low perceived cost and value. It is also quite striking how the consequences of these poor practices in terms of overuse and waste are then, due to the nature of the resources, redistributed to everyone in the society (as air and water pollution).
I will readily admit that I am far from being the guiding environmental light to which perhaps I should aspire, but that said, I do agree with the broadly accepted principles of water conservation. My problem comes, as I think many would agree, when I try to integrate these principles into my daily personal life in a coherent and effective manner, and things only get worse when I consider them as a garden designer and contractor. In the garden, certainly some progress has been made with more efficient irrigation solutions both for water distribution and with the installation of integrated systems to check for leaks on an ongoing basis (by monitoring for unexplained sudden increases in usage). Any professionally trained contractor up-to-date with the latest products available will be able to advise on this. Additionally, sensible irrigation practices can be adopted to reduce loss to evaporation, such as executing all the airborne water dispersal during the night and limiting irrigation during the daylight hours to trickle feed.
I am often asked if rainwater catchment is worth considering – and some may be surprised that I never advocate this. The volume of stocking space required for even meager usage is so colossal when taking into account the infrequency of rainfall so as to make this practically (and more often financially) unfeasible for garden irrigation. Add to this the sensible but heavy obligations for water catchment as required for every planning permission for any kind of structure, and it makes personal stocking of rainwater only an option for cases with the most extremely limited garden water uses. A confusion I often have to clarify is the expectation that a water catchment tank can serve as a holding tank for rainwater. This cannot be the case as the role of a catchment tank as required by the planning authorities is to ensure each individual holds back on their land a volume of water proportional to the surface area that they have made impermeable by their building. This volume is then released slowly into the ground to avoid the stress that sudden massive volumes of water can place on drainage infrastructure (“flash flood” scenario). A water holding tank is not the same in that it would be impermeable to retain water and therefore have to be separate and in addition to the holding capacity as required by planning (which by design lets the water soak away). Once this is understood, it quickly becomes apparent that stocking rainwater on a personal practical level for garden use is rarely viable.
Proportional usage and quick fixes
The bottom line however is that using water to irrigate a garden remains disproportionate to any personal usage – and for this reason this is a very serious moral issue for our industry. One could argue that anything short of planting only native vegetation (or other species which require even less water) cannot be considered without being hypocritical if truly advocating the practice of water conservation. Extending this further, swimming pools are also surprisingly large consumers of water, with the average pool losing between 3 and 6mm each day at the height of summer (with an overflow this can be even higher, reaching up to half a cubic metre per day: as much as half the daily average consumption of a small household). While addressing leaking taps and fitting more water economic devices in properties will certainly help reduce unnecessary usage, this will only help temper to a limited extent our society’s insatiable thirst for water.
It is, in my opinion, absolutely crucial to extend and enhance the management of this precious resource, as usable water gets harder to provide. The carbon trading market, whilst neither fully developed nor perfect by design, has several overwhelmingly positive features – the most important of which being that the commodity is financially linked to the cost of its management. This is an attractive solution for several reasons. The high price paid by heavy users subsidises the cost of supplying the resource in an environmentally friendly manner and, crucially, it creates the necessary incentive to reduce consumption and develop new sustainable solutions that would not otherwise be financially viable if the resource was cheaper. Additionally it allows for those consumers with low levels of consumption (and those that have made the effort to reduce theirs) to benefit proportionally.
As sources become scarcer
In essence, this problem must be kept in perspective, and that while every step made to reduce consumption certainly has merit, this must be considered in the context of our overall relatively high usage. Reduction of water usage in the home is especially important as it has the double effect of reducing demand on supply as well as the energy required to treat the waste water that is then disposed of. Thankfully the issue of waste does not often apply to gardens and pools, although since I do not believe I will stop being asked to design gardens and swimming pools anytime soon, improving the management of the supply must be a high priority.
In the future, with reduced availability of usable water but with sufficient funding, many new possibilities will need evaluation. Perhaps desalination plants (reverse osmosis or evaporation) could become feasible although detractors criticise desalination as too expensive and too energy hungry to be of real use. But what if these could be powered by the renewable sources of wind or wave energy? Indeed, if a desalination plant could be sited at sea and be powered by the renewable energy in abundance there, this would also allow the waste product of highly saline water to be rapidly dispersed and diluted without detriment to wildlife. The cleverness of this design is incontestable and while probably cost prohibitive it is certainly food for thought. It also exemplifies the fact that it is not that we are going to run out of water (quite the reverse!), but that in the future we will need more advanced technology and ever increasing amounts of energy to produce and supply usable water as the naturally available sources become scarcer. Ultimately it is only by reflecting the true cost of supplying the resource in a sustainable manner that will allow these other resources to be developed and become viable, and simultaneously force people to truly integrate the issue of water conservation into every aspect of their lives in an effective and considered manner. J.H.
From Riviera Reporter Issue 129: Oct/Nov 2008
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