Increasing Water Supplies
Geography: AQA GCSE, topic 6.3.5
How Can We Increase Water Supplies?
Increasing water supplies can be achieved by diverting water supplies, increasing water storage, using dams & reservoirs, using water transfers or building desalination plants.
Increasing water storage, dams, and reservoirs
- The UK uses dams and reservoirs to transfer water.
- Networks of dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts can transport water across the UK.
- Manchester gets water from the Lake District, Birmingham gets water from Wales, London gets its water from the River Thames upstream of Teddington.
- Water is trapped behind a dam. This builds a reservoir, full of water.
- Reservoirs essentially build up a stockpile of water throughout the year, when it is most needed.
- Inevitably, some land must be flooded to store water in a reservoir.
Water transfers and diverting water supplies
- Water can be transferred from one area to another by diverting water supplies.
- Water is usually moved from an area of surplus water to an area with a water deficit.
- Building aqueducts and canals can help water flow to new places. However, gravity means that it has to be transferred from higher ground to lower ground.
Desalination
- Desalination plants take seawater, extract the salt and produce drinkable freshwater.
- Desalination can happen by boiling seawater and separating the water & salt, or by filtering the seawater in a membrane.
- Desalination is most common in areas with the largest water deficits (North Africa and the Middle East). These plants produce enough freshwater for 300 million people.
- 97% of the Earth's water is salty seawater.
- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Qatar are 3 of the largest users of desalination to get water.
Test yourself on Increasing Water Supplies
What do we call the body of water that gets trapped behind a dam?