Mayor of London's draft water strategy

Consultation is underway on the Mayor of London’s draft water strategy for the capital. London may have been ahead of the world when the Victorians designed the water system but now it has major problems of both securing water supplies and disposing of sewage in the face of a steadily growing population, a more competitive global business environment and a changing climate. This report promotes a number of proposals to reduce water consumption and use it more wisely while also tackling the investment needed to upgrade the water and sewage infrastructure.

The availability of water is likely to be a key issue for many parts of the world over the next decade. London is an excellent microcosm of the problems that many major urban conurbations will face. The draft report contains many valuable ideas and is well worth reading.

The main messages of the report are ones that many would do well to heed. It advocates that becoming waterwise is common sense for both individuals and for the health and wealth of the city as a whole. The clear choice articulated of either making the available water go further or paying for prohibitively expensive ways to secure water is one that many cities and indeed countries will have to face.