We Californians are in a SEVERE DROUGHT. Other states too. We MUST cut back on water usage. HOW BEST TO DO IT?

Thank you for your helpful reply Durdle. We live in a retirement village where there are no lawns. It's either rocks or cement dyed green. We have a lemon tree in the back and a few rose bushes in the front. Jim waters them several times a week during the summer. I wish we could rely on summer rains or winter rains but I can't remember the last time it rained enough to matter. Our tap water isn't very tasty so we regularly go to the "WATER STORE" and buy water with which I cook and which we drink. Tap water is used for showers and washing machines and the dishwasher. So if we didn't buy the water we'd be consuming that much more. Of course our Governor doesn't know that and the request/requirement is to cut back by 15% WHAT YOU ARE USING. There's just the two of us. Large families will have it a lot harder to do I'm sure and at some point it will be an ORDER not a request. I don't know how bad it will get because I'm pretty sure we've never been there before. SIGH. Have you ever had that situation in your country with anything? :) This post was edited by RosieG at July 12, 2021 2:52 AM MDT

Thank you for explaining the situation.

I really did not even think that you would have mains water not really suitable for drinking and even cooking directly, even allowing for your State's interior being mainly arid.

When I had a water-meter installed in my first home, the water company gave me a leaflet explaining it all. It contained a graph of typical consumption and costs, showing that the larger the family so higher the water use, the less the saving obtained by using a meter, because of the two ways the water is charged for. In fact they revealed a cut-off point beyond which the existing rateable-value charge system was more economical. For a household of just one person or a couple though, using a metered supply greatly reduced the bill.

It's thankfully not very often here that we have to reduce consumption, and it can usually be catered for by hose-pipe bans. The occasions when the water cannot be used or has to be turned off are rare; usually the result of a major burst or plant failure. One area of the English  Midlands was affected like that, some years ago now, when floods swamped the treatment works. The water company there distributed bottled water until it could restore supplies.

The laws here on water quality are very strict, basically regarding tap-water as if a fresh food so must be safe to drink. Some 20 years ago I think, my work involved a short-term research contract for a major water-company. It was interesting and re-assuring on the site trials to see the precautions the water technicians took to prevent the pipes and water in them being contaminated by the work. 

Our water-company is presently renewing the local service-mains in the streets, and completed my road a few weeks ago. It warned of possible short-term cuts, but I did not notice any so they must use a very well-planned and practised technicque to reduce each home's interruption to a very short interval. They installed a new pipe to the front of my house and needed to dig only a small hole by the house wall, not a trench. 
   

Don't you get lots of rain all the time Durdle? So the supply of water automatically waters lawns and plants and people too. It sounds as if the system works quite well. I don't know if you aware of what flint, Michigan has gone through waterwise but the pols in charge wanted to cut costs so they switched the water supply to homes from one source to another. And then their world fell in. They still have problems there. Our pols are not very smart and rarely do they care about the people they  elected to serve. They're there to make names for themselves and as much money as they can beg borrow or STEAL. I expect your pols are more worthy of respect. I hope so. Thank you for your detailed reply. It helps to know how other citizens in other countries live, cope, survive! :)

Oh, I doubt many of our poliiticians are as bright as that! Even so, our public utilities do genrally work well although I wish they had not been sold off. (My area's water company is owned by YTL, a Malaysian cemnet-making and property-developing firm. Others are owned by the French nation!)

Itr is true that the British Isles have more rain than some parts of the North American continent, but we still have length dry spells that necessitate some controls on water use.  

The quality of mains nwater is to a very high standard set by law. The water companies are also responsible for the sewer and storm-water drains; again covered by strict lawa. One, Southern Water, has just been fined some £90 million for continuing discharges of raw sewage into the sea and some rivers in its area.

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Have the floods in Germany and Belgium been reported on your news? Over 120 deaths so far, and many people still not accounted for. South-East England was just under the edge of the weather system responsible, and it did cause heavy rain with some flooding in London.

Indeed yes and it is very sad Also very BIZARRE. Extreme DROUGHT in so much of the world and deluges death destruction in other parts. Something is trying to get our attention. Is there a solution at this stage? The part about climate change and greenhouse gases is due to homo saps. But flooding, torrential rains? Do homo saps have any culpability there? Thank you for your reply Durdle. Fires are burning in Ca;ifornia as we speak. Temperature exptremes have states who never experienced them.  I'm sure earthquakes are waiting in the wings so to speak to make an appearance. Mother Nature has a variety of ways to get our attention. Few of them are benign (rainbows...the aurora borealis...sunrieses...sunsets).

Climate change brings a whole suite of effects  caused by a large amount of extra heat energy trapped in the sea and atmosphere (the "greenhouse effect").

Essentially the world's climates become literally more energetic.

Among the results are more violent weather systems, such as the heatwaves and the rain-storms; and more of them.

Now floods in part of New Zealand... Just caught it on the news on the radio.


Earthquakes are caused by processes inside the planet, not the climate, and they can occur in certain parts of the world more or less at any time.

Once upon a time people talked blithely of "taming" Nature. Not any more. Nature can show us many beautiful things as you say, but is bigger than us and can bite back.

Climate has nothing to do with earthquakes? In California we speak of "earthquake weather". Warmish. We are long overdue for THE BIG ONE. For years we wait. How BIG? On the order of magnitude of the SAN FRANCISCO EARTHQUAKE.  We have seismic measurers up and down the state and experts monitoring them. But "they" cannot tell us when it is most apt to hit. Just that it is LONG OVERDUE. AARRGGHH! That's not good enough but well it will have to do. Thank you for your informative reply Durdle. Do you have earthquakes?