Water conservation

Water conservation and managment

better use of water resources achieved in several ways:

• increase total amount of water available for use
• distribute water more effectively
• use water more efficiently

Increasing availability of water

Increased abstraction

• availability of water increased by abstracting more river water, groundwater or seawater and by building storage reservoirs
• small scale collection may reduce demand for public supplies e.g. collecting rainwater for garden use or low quality uses such as flushing toliets 
• Increased abstraction limited by amount of water that is available or by energy and finacial costs of purification 

Catchment management

catchment management can make the available water supplies more usable

• reservoirs used to maintain river water levels in times of low natural flow and to store water during periods of flood risk
• prevention of pollution upstream of water abstraction points reduces amount of water that is too polluted to use + makes purification easier

Aquifer recharge

• 
  partially depleted aquifers can be recharged during periods of surplus surface water
• water from river Thames pumped…