drought and demand final report april 2008 and demand fi… · chapter 3 – understandings of...
TRANSCRIPT
Final Report
Will Medd and Heather Chappells
Lancaster University
April 2008
Drought and Demand 2006 was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (RES-177-25-0001) in collaboration with UKWIR, Defra, OFWAT, the Environment Agency, Anglian Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, Folkestone and Dover Water, Three Valleys Water and South East Water.
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Contents
Executive summary
Chapter 1 - Introduction 1
Chapter 2 – Background and research design 4-9 2.1 Introduction 4
2.3 Conceptualising demand 5
2.4 Methodology for understanding demand 6
Chapter 3 – Understandings of drought and demand 10-24 3.1 Introduction 10
3.2 Water industry evaluations of the 2006 drought 10
3.3 Communicating drought 12
3.4 Consumer perceptions of drought and demand management 15
3.5 Conclusion 24
Chapter 4 – Everyday practices and normal consumption 25-57 4.1 Introduction 25
4.2 Diversity in water practices 25
4.3 Multiple meanings and values of water 28
4.4 Social conventions shaping obligations 34
4.5 Routines, habits and household dynamics 42
4.6 Technical and infrastructural capacities 49
4.7 Conclusion 56
Chapter 5 – Outdoor living and peak demand 58-86 5.1 Introduction 58
5.2 Conjunctions of practices underpinning peak demand 58
5.3 The significance of gardening for UK householders 62
5.4 Drought, hosepipe bans and disruption to outdoor life 64
5.5 Social orientations to outdoor life 70
5.6 Social orientations and watering obligations 74
5.7 Social orientation and garden technologies 78
5.8 Conclusion 85
Chapter 6 – Managing drought and demand 87-109 6.1 Introduction 87
6.2 Defining the drought 87
6.3 Local variability in demand and the assessment of drought risk 94
6.4 Establishing drought management priorities in 2006 96
6.5 Conclusion 108
Chapter 7 Conclusion and implications 110-120
References 121
Appendix A: Household sample and interview schedule i-iv
Appendix B: Manager sample and interview schedule vi-vii
Acknowledgements The ‘Drought and Demand in 2006’ research was co-funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC Grant No. RES-0177-25-0002), UKWIR, Defra, OFWAT, Environment Agency, Anglian Water, Essex and Suffolk Water, Folkestone and Dover Water, Three Valleys Water and South East Water. The authors of this paper would like to thank these bodies for their generous assistance. In particular we are grateful to Mike Pocock (Three Valleys Water), Mike Farrimond/Nick Humphrey (UKWIR) and Gary Grubb (ESRC) for enabling the funding to come together within a relatively short time frame. We would also like to thank participants in our two workshops and our steering group for their engagement and helpful discussion, as well as to all our interviewees for their cooperation. We thank Elizabeth Shove, Frank Trentmann, Vanessa Taylor and Gordon Walker for their specific input into the project.
Executive Summary Climate change, socio-demographic change and changing consumption patterns are creating new and somewhat unpredictable challenges for the UK water sector. Addressing water demand presents one of the most significant long term challenges for environmental policy makers. The drought of 2006 brought these issues to the fore with eight water companies in the south east of England banning hosepipe use for approximately 15.6 million people. During the drought consumers were urged to adjust their habits to help avoid more severe restrictions of water use. Drawing on sociological approaches that challenge dominant ‘environment-centric’ approaches to demand management Drought and Demand in 2006 aimed to reveal the assumptions about demand in systems of water practice and provision, to discover if, and to what extent, drought might act as a catalyst for change in definitions of normal and necessary levels of water consumption, and to identify the dynamics of resilience in demand, both in relation to adaptation as well as persistence. The project had four main objectives: • To see how consumers respond to drought and to examine the resilience of specific
household practices. • To learn about the role and potential contribution of water resource managers in
structuring demand, again identifying where resilience in terms of adaptability and robustness might lie.
• To reveal and analyse relations between water regulators, companies and consumers and how these structure understandings of socio-technical resilience.
• To consider what short term responses to drought can tell us about the role of water companies, regulators and consumers in shaping future demand and the implications for understanding the socio-technical resilience of water resources in the UK.
Methodology Drought and Demand 2006 was underpinned by an understanding of water demand as situated within the contexts of everyday life and structured through existing social practices and socio-technical regimes. The drought of 2006 provided an interesting ‘disrupting’ opportunity through which to explore these dynamics and to identify where opportunities for building resilience for the future might lie. In-depth qualitative research, involving interviews with 22 householders in the south east of England, managers from 4 water resource teams and representatives from the 4 main national regulatory bodies and regional teams, were undertaken during the summer of 2006 when hosepipe bans had been introduced and regional managers were responding to water scarcity in their supply jurisdictions. Analysis and results 1) Householder understandings of drought and demand: Householders interpretations of the of drought were mediated by media representations of drought, by perception of water company activity, their personal experience of pervious drought, and their perception of their local circumstances. While householders’ recognised a need to manage future demand in the south east, ironically, the visibility of effective
management by water companies can sometimes mean people think there is no need to reduce water consumption. 2) Everyday practices and normal consumption: Everyday practices (such as showering, doing the laundry, toilet flushing) that lead to water consumption are shaped by different meanings and values, social conventions, routines and habits as well as household technologies. Some of these practices are more deeply ingrained in the daily routines of householders, while others appeared to be more easily renegotiated.The drought, and appeals for water saving, did not appear to have penetrated householders lives, especially when it came to redefining more permanent change in routines or rituals. Significant adjustments to normal practice were more likely to be defined with relation to changing household dynamics, through social interactions with friends, neighbours and families and with reference to the level of convenience afforded. 3) Outdoor living and peak demand: Obligations for water use in outdoor life are bound up in social, cultural, technological, emotional and symbolic meanings of what gardens are for. Householders’ responses suggest outdoor practices are relatively more flexible than indoor ones, although this did not necessarily equate with less water use, but adaptation using new methods and devices to ‘beat the ban’. Droughts may disrupt some activities but they do not necessarily challenge the social orientations that define normal ways of doing things and consequently water use. However, a limited uptake of both water butts and more sophisticated domestic recycling technologies was attributed to a lack of institutional support. 4) Managing drought and demand: Drought management strategies now focus on avoiding disruption to consumers as far as possible in order to maintain agreed levels of supply to meet demand (ruling out standpipes and rota cuts). More fluid definitions of drought that shaped how drought management strategies were developed and enacted create some tension between regional level strategy and local circumstances. Water companies continue to face difficulties in re-evaluating their roles as commercial profit making companies in the business of selling water or as providers of environmental services like water efficiency. Conclusions and implications Existing institutional frameworks appear to limit the extent to which alternative forms of provision are seriously debated. There is considerable scope for identifying the diverse routes through which households with very different water using orientations might change their water use, for encouraging debate about water as ‘fit for purpose’ rather than general use, and for exploring institutional support to build competences in innovation at the level of the household. Our findings point to the need for a more developed and balanced interpretation of the water consumer not only as a customer valuing water as an economic resource, or as a profligate waster, but as a wider member of society with different valuations of water related to work, leisure and home life. From our results we draw four sets of implications for research and policy on water demand:
1) Continued research to understand the diversity of everyday practice: The project has identified a continued and urgent need for further ‘thick’ analysis of everyday practice that goes beyond the representation of the average consumer in order to understand the different patterns of orientations to water use as well as future
trajectories. Such analysis will give the industry a more accurate understanding of when, where and for which households particular interventions (e.g. metering or communication campaigns) will be effective, as well as help in opening up the possibilities for alternative forms of intervention.
2) Developing diversified demand management strategies: Demand management strategies formulated at an aggregated level fail to engage with the diversity of everyday practices in which water is implicated. Further engagement in how more sophisticated and targeted demand management strategies could be designed that are more sensitive to the variable contexts of everyday living and to different social orientations of households is needed.
3) Opening-up the socio-technical structuring of demand: Obligations to use water do not only relate to individual needs but are framed by wider social, institutional and technical contexts. This implies the need for demand managers to engage in a more radical debate about the shifting conventions of normal or legitimate consumption, their own role in structuring these, and the possibilities for alternative forms of provision.
4) Evaluating resilience across scales of practice: There is a continued need to encourage debate between different players, including academics, the water industry, government, regulators, and through public consultation, in order to explore possibilities for more radical approaches to building future resilience across different scales of practice.
Finally, this project emerged from, has benefited from, and contributed to, ongoing dialogue between the research community (including both social science and engineering) and the water sector. The workshop format that we have developed, building on the Traces of Water series, created a context for ongoing conversation, clarification, argument and reflection. We strongly recommend that such processes are built into all future projects and that a platform for continued industry-academia and interdisciplinary debate be enabled. This is crucial if workable and sustainable solutions to the challenges of managing demand in the context of future water scarcity are to be realised.
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CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION
Climate change, socio-demographic change and changes in water use are creating new
and somewhat unpredictable challenges for the UK water sector (Cole and Marsh 2006,
Downing et al 2003, House of Lords 2006). High per capita consumption and new
housing developments will place a particular strain on resources in the south east of
England. With excessive river abstraction and the unsustainable use of groundwater
already experienced there are significant constraints on the flexibility of supply. Coupled
with tighter provisions for target headroom and emergency storage, more stringent
environmental legislation on abstractions, and the restrictive costs of new infrastructure
development, the capacity to meet increased demand in the south east of England is
severely limited (Every and Foley 2005).
The situation in the south east reflects a wider need to develop more effective and
efficient demand side management that addresses the long-term challenges of changing
consumption practices, diminishing supply capacity and environmental change. The
sustainability of water supply is seen by government to require intensified efforts to
constrain domestic demand through engagement with consumers (DCLG/Defra 2006).
Strategies for demand management currently focus on communication campaigns and
economic incentives designed to encourage water saving and the application of
technical fixes designed to improve the efficiency with which water is used (Environment
Agency 2007a, DCLG/Defra 2006). Such approaches are based on the premise that,
given the right environmental or economic messages about resource use, people will be
motivated to change their behaviour. Sustainable consumption is understood as a matter
for individual choice. While there is a need to develop further research about the impact
of information, water efficient technologies or widespread metering, there is also a need
to engage with questions about the underlying social dynamics of demand that drive
core assumptions about ‘normal’, ‘wasteful’ and ‘legitimate’ consumption. These cannot
be explained by individual behaviour alone. However, the dynamics of domestic demand
are still poorly understood (National Audit Office 2007) and there remains considerable
uncertainty about current and future levels and patterns of demand,
The drought of 2004-2006 brought the issues of understanding and managing demand
issues to the fore when lower than average rainfall levels contributed to eight water
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companies in the south east of England banning hosepipe use for approximately 15.6
million people (Environment Agency 2006a). Drought management strategies imposed
by water regulators and companies provoked renewed discussion about water needs,
rights, and responsibilities in contemporary British society. This discussion included a
government level review about what should or should not be designated as a ‘non-
essential’ use in the context of defining drought restrictions (Defra 2007).
The project Drought and Demand in 2006, developed in response to the emerging
drought situation, and was informed by ideas emerging in the UKWIR (UK Water
Industry Research) funded programme Traces of Water. Traces of Water involved a
series of workshops that engaged social scientists and water industry participants in
debate about understanding water demand and demand management (Medd and Shove
2007). A core theme emerging through the workshops was the need to understand how
demand is constituted through the habits and routines of everyday life. In turn, to
understand the dynamics of these habits and routines, we need to look at the social and
technological factors that shape them. For example, we cannot explain increased
demand for showering without understanding changes in the technological provision of
water (e.g. plumbing and pressure), changing conventions of cleanliness and
convenience and the changing organisation of everyday life (Hand et al 2003). It follows
that instead of assuming that demand is equated only with the consumer we must also
look at the role of the water industry, among other sectors, to understand the dynamics
of demand. Infrastructure managers, engineers, planners, designers and manufacturers
all play a role in making demand (Medd and Shove 2007). The Traces of Water series
was just a start and it was clear that more in-depth qualitative analyses of the dynamics
of demand was needed to contribute to an emerging agenda of understanding the social
contexts of water consumption and possibilities for change in routinised and habitual
practices.
The Drought of 2006 provided an opportunity to take forward the Traces of Water
agenda. The significance of drought is that it potentially disrupts many of our
assumptions of what is normal with relation to everyday consumption practices. Such
disruption often reveals the things that we take for granted. Disruption can bring to the
fore negotiations about the roles, responsibilities and expectations of different actors
(Medd and Shove 2007). Drought can also provide an important opportunity to reflect on
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how assumptions of normal practice are established, uprooted and reproduced and to
explore the implications for developing future strategies for adaptation.
The aim of Drought and Demand 2006 was to reveal the assumptions about demand in
systems of water practice and provision, to discover if, and to what extent, drought might
act as a catalyst for change in definitions of normal and necessary levels of water
consumption, and to identify the dynamics of resilience in demand, both in relation to
adaptation as well as persistence. The project had four main objectives:
� To see how consumers respond to drought and to examine the resilience of specific
household practices.
� To learn about the role and potential contribution of water resource managers in
structuring demand, again identifying where resilience in terms of adaptability and
robustness might lie.
� To reveal and analyse relations between water regulators, companies and
consumers and how these structure understandings of socio-technical resilience.
� To consider what short term responses to drought can tell us about the role of water
companies, regulators and consumers in shaping future demand and the implications
for understanding the socio-technical resilience of water resources in the UK.
These objectives were met through a programme of in-depth qualitative research, which
included semi-structured interviews with householders and water management teams in
the south east of England, and further consultation with national and regional regulators.
We also held two workshops that involved academics and industry representatives to
discuss the findings of the project.
This final report of the Drought and Demand project is structured as follows. In Chapter
2 we present the background to the 2006 drought and the approach and methodology
we developed in the project. In Chapter 3 we look at the formulation of demand
management campaigns during the drought and how these were interpreted by
householders. In Chapters 4 we explore the dynamics of household practices within the
home, turning in Chapter 5 to focus on the specific practices of outdoor living. In
Chapter 6 we look at the issues involved in managing drought in relation to demand.
Finally in Chapter 7 we conclude, with key arguments concerning adaptation and
resilience in the UK water sector and identify priorities for future research.
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CHAPTER 2 - BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH DESIGN
2.1 INTRODUCTION
“Across the south east of England, rainfall has been much lower than
for the same period in 1974-76, and in some places it is the lowest
since the drought of 1920-22. Continued dry weather through the
spring and into the summer would give us one of the most serious
droughts of the last hundred years” (Environment Agency 2006b: p2,
February)
Droughts threaten both the security of public water supply and the integrity of
environmental and ecological systems. Consequently, following the Water Act 2003,
water companies are required to produce ‘drought management plans’, detailing
monitoring procedures, triggers of drought conditions and measures to mitigate the
impact of, and recovery from, drought (see O’Connor 2007 for a detailed account of
drought regulation, roles and responsibilities). To be granted drought permits or orders,
which allow abstraction beyond the constraints of their normal license, companies must
demonstrate that appropriate demand management measures have been implemented
(Defra 2005). In accordance with these requirements, the 2006 drought saw eight water
companies in the south east of England ban hosepipe use for 15.6 million people: for 3.4
million people this was the second consecutive summer of water restrictions
(Environment Agency, 2006a). Four water companies applied to the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to restrict other uses of water, for example,
Sutton and East Surrey Water used these drought powers to restrict the watering of
playing fields, some commercial car washes and some other ‘non essential’ uses.
Hosepipe bans were lifted by some companies in October, but most remained in place
until early 2007. Despite removing restrictions, all companies continued to urge caution
in water use for their customers (Waterwise 2007a).
Droughts, such as that experienced in 2006, may be relatively short-lived but they raise
fundamental questions about the long term resilience of UK water resources and
demand. In particular the need for vastly improved information and understanding about
water consumption practices and their dynamics has been highlighted (National Audit
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Office 2007). This is vital to the development of effective demand management
strategies able to adapt to the dynamic uncertainties of consumption and to avoid over-
reliance on supply development that can be both economically and environmentally
costly. Drought and Demand in 2006 contributes to learning and knowledge in this field
by developing an understanding about how demand is situated within the habitual and
routine contexts of everyday life and mediated by systems of water provision (Allon and
Sofoulis 2006, Medd and Shove 2007, Shove 2003). Such knowledge can be used to
inform strategies for promoting long-term change in domestic water cultures and
consumption practices.
2.2 CONCEPTUALISING DEMAND
Attempts to manage demand are based on certain understandings about water users
(Sharp 2006). A dominant assumption informing water policies and strategies of demand
management in the UK is that consumer demand can be shaped by better information
(e.g. by water saving campaigns), economic incentives (e.g. by metering or tariff
structures) or water efficient technologies (e.g. low flow shower heads). Within this
framing of demand, research has contributed to better understanding of public
perceptions and individual behavioural attitudes towards water saving (Consumer
Council for Water 2006, Gilg and Barr 2006), the impact of metering (UKWIR 2005) and
the effect of new technologies (DCLG/Defra 2007, Waterwise 2007b, UKWIR/Entec
2003). All of this research is important. However, if long-term change in domestic water
using cultures is to be achieved, in order to reduce growing and persistent pressures on
water resources, existing work needs to be complemented by an understanding of the
social contexts of demand and that means looking at how the routines and habits of
everyday life are shaped.
Instead of examining environmental attitudes and motivations toward water saving, our
approach was to investigate the ordinary and everyday contexts in which normal
consumption practices evolve. This meant thinking about water in terms of what it
enabled people to do and focusing attention on these activities rather than on water itself
(Shove 2003, Sofoulis 2006). In part this required the examination of the different
meanings and values that water has for people in different social contexts (Strang 2004).
Our contention is that the majority of domestic water consumption arises as a
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consequence of the routines and conventions of everyday life. Relevant water-
consuming practices include gardening, laundering, showering, bathing and flushing the
toilet. Some of these ‘habits’ are deeply engrained and relatively standardised, being
held in place by existing infrastructures, requisite technologies and associated
conventions. Others are more diverse, varied and fluid. Future demand depends upon
how water-consuming practices change and how these vary between households and
among different family members (Medd and Shove 2007).
To understand the dynamics of practices such as laundering, gardening, bathing, etc., it
is important to consider the ways in which these are arranged within the household. In
turn this also means looking at how such arrangements are structured through the
systems in which households are embedded. As large technical systems, like water
infrastructures, have become integral to our everyday lives we have become “undeniably
part of these systems… when they are reshaped, parts of our lives are reshaped” (Guy
and Marvin 2001: p27). The concept of ‘systems of provision’ (Fine 2002, Guy et al
2001) refers to the array and sequence of activities, technologies and institutional
arrangements that come together in the provision of a particular product or service
(Medd and Shove 2007). By looking at the systems of provision in which different
everyday practices are embedded, we can see how demand is configured, not only
within the home, but within the associated networks and supply-chains through which
goods, services, and resources are distributed, defined and delivered. These systems
essentially configure and create demand through developing dependencies on water to
fulfil different needs. In switching on the shower or tap to fulfil the need for daily
practices, households also contribute to the ongoing reproduction of such systems. In
recognition of such independencies, in Drought and Demand in 2006 we have positioned
demand as arising from both the consumption practices of households and as a product
of systems of water provision (Chappells 2003, Guy et al 2001, Spaargaren 2004, Van
Vliet et al 2005).
2.3. METHODOLOGY FOR UNDERSTANDING DEMAND
Quantitative studies of domestic water consumption, including micro-component
analyses, have helped to identify how water use is split between different activities and
where the big areas of change lie (e.g. toileting, showering, bathing or gardening) (Butler
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and Memon 2006, Herrington 1996). However, this analysis has to date been limited in
enabling us to explain the diverse social contexts structuring these patterns and the
tendency in research is to focus on the “average” consumer, as encapsulated in
standardised measures of per capita consumption (PCC). While the notion of the
‘average’ consumer is a statistical construct, comparisons of water company
performance based on measures of average PCC have had significant effects on
regulation, investment and future planning. Yet analysis of micro-component water use
for households that are close to the statistically ‘average’ per capita usage has revealed
considerable diversity of usage between ‘average’ households (Medd and Shove 2007).
In developing our qualitative analysis we were therefore conscious to examine the
variability and diversity of different water consuming practices within households, and
the social conventions and technologies that supported these.
The immediacy of the drought influenced the programme of empirical research which
began in the early stages of the project. Fieldwork, including interviews with households
and water resource teams, was undertaken during the summer of 2006 when hosepipe
bans had been introduced and managers were responding to water scarcity in their
supply jurisdictions.
There were three key aspects to the empirical work:
1) In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with 22 householders in the south east
(see Appendix A for details of selection criteria, household characteristics and interview
schedule). Identifying a representative group of water consumers is problematic in the
absence of accurate and up-to-date information on household composition (Environment
Agency 2004). Our strategy was to select households that were: (a) not metered, on the
basis that water companies knew relatively little about the consumption practices of this
group while they account for more than 50% of UK demand; and, (b) comprised of a
family of 4 occupying a semi-detached house with 3 bedrooms, garden and driveway, on
the basis that these would be relatively high water users of different ages engaged in a
diversity of practices both indoors and outdoors. While these criteria were not met in
every case (see Appendix A for sampling limitations), our small-scale qualitative
approach facilitated detailed exploration of household practices and, consistent with
previous studies, highlighted how ways of using water varied considerably across what
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are often represented as ‘average’ households. The interviews explored the ways in
which water was consumed within the household setting, how, if at all, the drought had
impacted upon this, and where the potential opportunities for change in practice lay.
Beyond the intention of the original proposal we asked householders to complete a diary
in order to capture any changes in practices over the summer and reflections on the
drought (12 were completed) (see Appendix A for diary format).
2) Interviews with a selection of water resource managers at 4 of the participating
companies were undertaken in parallel with the householder interviews (see Appendix B
for an overview of each company and the interview schedule). These semi-structured
interviews focused on how the drought was defined and managed locally in relation to
the specificities of demand and supply, and how the formulation of responses (e.g.
hosepipe bans, leakage control, communication campaigns) reflected different
evaluations of risk (e.g. economic, environmental), and the contingencies of
infrastructural and institutional arrangements.
3) A further phase of empirical research in early 2007, included interviews with
representatives of the 4 main national regulatory bodies for water in the UK (Defra,
Ofwat, the Consumer Council for Water and the Environment Agency), and a further 2
interviews with those responsible for drought management in each of the Environment
Agency’s Eastern and Southern regions. These interviews explored the locally
contingent meaning and implications of the 2006 drought and the interpretation and
management of demand across different jurisdictions and scales.
Our interviews with households, managers and regulators were recorded, transcribed
and encoded using Atlas qualitative analysis software. In this report we organise our
analysis and results around four themes that emerged in the analysis:
Understandings of drought and demand: we review in Chapter 3 current
debates about demand and its management within water research and practice.
Dominant strategies used to manage demand during the drought and
understandings of demand they support are discussed in light of consumers own
perceptions of drought and the challenges of demand management.
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Everyday practices and normal consumption: In Chapter 4 we explore what
structures normal water consumption practices and their dynamics in the home.
Using extracts from our householder interviews we identify the differentiated
dynamics of household practices such as bathing, showering, laundering and
dishwashing and explore how these structure the capacity of households to
adapt to demand management initiatives.
Outdoor living and peak demand: In chapter 5 we focus on outdoor living to
demonstrate how specific household orientations structure gardening activity on
hot days and contribute to peak demand. The introduction of the hosepipe ban
as a form of disruption illustrates the extent to which outdoor practices and
responses of households are both adaptable and dependent on water companies
and regulators definitions of drought and legitimate demand.
Managing drought and demand: Starting with a conceptualization of drought as
‘produced scarcity’ - shaped by water politics and institutions - Chapter 6
analyses the way in which the drought in 2006 was constructed and how this
compared to previous situations of scarcity in the UK. Through analysis of
interviews with water resource managers and regulators we explore how different
localised arrangements of supply and demand, regional and national evaluations
of economic and environmental risk and concepts of service defined
understandings of drought and shaped contexts for demand management.
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CHAPTER 3 - UNDERSTANDINGS OF DROUGHT AND DEMAND
3.1. INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we review approaches to demand management during the drought and
identify the ways in which householders interpreted the drought. First, we discuss how
the demand management strategies adapted in the drought were successful from the
perspective of the water industry. Second we highlight some of the key issues facing
water managers in the communication of the drought to consumers and the uncertainties
this produced. The third aspect we consider is how the householders we interviewed
talked about the drought. We focus here on how the role of the media and companies,
personal experience of previous droughts, and assessment of relative responsibilities
shaped perceptions of the drought. Finally, we conclude by emphasising the need to
understand the specific social and local contexts through which people interpret the
severity of drought and raise the issue that the relationship between attitudes and
behaviour are not always as straightforward as a company’s own evaluations of effective
campaigns might assume.
3.2 WATER INDUSTRY EVALUATIONS OF THE 2006 DROUGHT
The management of the 2006 drought in the south east of England was generally
regarded as a success. Householders did not face the disruption of standpipes or rota
cuts and, according to water company estimates, during the drought demand was 5 to
15% lower than expected (Duggin et al 2007). However, in some water resource zones,
peak demand reached near record levels in July and there was real concern among
water managers that, had there been a third dry winter (which did not materialise),
significant disruption to everyday life would have been incurred. While proactive
management, by both water managers and consumers, and the wiles of the weather
may indeed have averted a more significant crisis (in fact it was floods rather than
drought that became problematic in 2007), the complexities and uncertainties of demand
continue to generate significant challenges for the formulation of demand management
strategies that are likely to prove effective in the long-term.
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Recent research on the effectiveness of demand management measures in the home
suggests inconclusive results with relation to water saving potential and raises questions
about the usefulness of existing methodologies for estimating demand. A report
published in 2007 by the National Audit Office (NAO) found ‘inherent weaknesses in
information on demand for water and leakage’, and that:
“Consumption figures, even within the same region, range between 124
and 177 litres per person per day. It is not currently clear how much of this
is due to socio-economic or other factors affecting water use as opposed to
inconsistencies in consumption estimations, nor the impact that these
differences may have on aggregate projections of demand” (NAO 2007,
p4).
While the NAO found that evidence on the results of water efficiency projects was
growing they concluded that ‘it is still not possible to say which projects are most
effective in helping consumers waste less water’ (NAO 2007: p5).
Initial survey research on the 2004-2006 drought, commissioned by Water UK (Mori
2005) and the Consumer Council for Water (CC Water 2006) showed that, by and large,
the public do accept measures such as hosepipe bans. Qualitative research undertaken
during the drought as part of the Using Water Wisely study also found that the majority
of customers in water stressed areas were prepared to respond to hosepipe bans but
that this would depend on how far they perceived companies to be taking action on
conservation and leakage (CC Water 2006). A study by Atkins to quantify the impact of
restrictions on demand during the drought in six water resource zones (WRZs), using a
multiple linear regression model, found that a full hosepipe ban in summer would yield
reductions in demand of between 10-15%., However, uncertainties remained about how
much of this reduction could be attributed to restrictions themselves or preceding efforts
to reduce demand, and how far effects would be transferable to other droughts or
resource zones (Duggin et al 2007). Figures quoted by water managers during the
drought also suggested demand savings of between 5-15% had been achieved but the
extent to which this diminishing demand could be attributed to communication
campaigns, hosepipe bans or other factors, such as changing weather patterns, was not
clear.
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Initial analyses of the 2004-2006 drought provided evidence to suggest that water
consumers may be willing to conserve water during drought, but that there are still many
uncertainties regarding the impact of current strategies in promoting longer term
changes in consumption practices. We therefore begin our analysis of the 2006 drought
by looking at the uncertainties and potential limitations of demand management as
currently formulated in producing long-term changes to consumer practice. In reviewing
strategies of demand management designed to beat the drought, which focused on
communication campaigns and hosepipe bans, we identify how certain assumptions
about the rationality of consumers are built into current approaches that consequently
limit the contexts for sustainable adaptation and change. We specifically question, in
light of our own empirical findings, whether consumers relate to water in the ways
envisaged by water providers, or whether they formulate evaluations of drought and the
need for responses with relation to different sets of concerns (cf. Sharp 2006).
3.3 COMMUNICATING THE DROUGHT
The sequence of demand management strategies enacted in response to the drought
was consistent with that outlined in water companies drought management plans.
Managers described the first phase as a ‘stepping-up’ of communication plans through
the preceding autumn and winter in anticipation of drought, with the further intensification
of strategies, including the introduction of hosepipe bans in spring, as Defra and the
Environment Agency grew increasingly anxious about the state of regional resources.
Broadly in line with resilience planning, this proactive approach was designed to prepare
customers for the possibility of drought and to avoid the need for a sudden, emergency
response. However, as water managers acknowledged, communicating with customers
is fraught with difficulties and uncertainties, as exposed in the 1995-96 drought which
was widely seen as a public relations disaster (Bakker 2003, Haughton 1998). In the
early stages of the drought, managers were concerned that consumers might respond to
appeals to conserve water or reduce wastage in unanticipated or counter-intuitive ways,
contributing to the intensification rather than mitigation of crises. In practice, many
managers believed that consumers had responded positively to communication
campaigns and restrictions, suggesting that this was indicative of an improved
perception of companies and sense of environmental awareness.
13
The precise formulation of communication messages during the 2006 drought indicates
that water managers and regulators in the UK are beginning to address how an
appreciation of peoples’ routine behaviours can help them to ‘get the message across’ to
consumers and alleviate peak demand. For example, communication campaigns were
introduced early on with the intention of influencing practices at key points in the
gardening year (e.g. the Easter weekend or spring bank holiday). This was indicative of
an appreciation of the scheduling of gardening activities (e.g. at the times when
decisions are made about what to plant). Companies reported that through the winter a
sustained programme of media messages ensured that people came to understand that
reservoirs and boreholes were not filling, that the water table was shrinking and that this
would have implications for people’s behaviour. As an outcome of this proactive
campaign of consistently pushing forward warnings, managers explained that the
expected peaks associated with spring planting did not happen.
Consumer attitudes to conservation are seen to relate to individual perceptions of water
scarcity. Another approach used by water companies and regulators during the summer
of 2006 involved campaigns designed to change people’s perceptions and values
relating to water scarcity and drought. One set of messages aimed to challenge
perceptions of England as a wet country and to instil, in particular, a sense of how the
south east was drier on average than some desert states. For example, the Environment
Agency produced statistics on their website to show that the south east of England has
less water per person than Syria and Sudan, with 58,000 gallons of water available for
every person in south-east England per year, compared to 95,000 gallons in Syria and
269,000 in Sudan. These efforts to fundamentally challenge peoples’ understandings of
regional climatic and environmental conditions were designed to stress that there is a
real water problem in England and that water cannot be taken for granted.
Surveys of UK householders have indicated that people prefer to have a consistent
message on drought and that this should come from an objective and trusted source
rather than from those with commercial interests invested in selling water (Consumer
Council for Water 2006). There is evidence to suggest that water authorities (including
companies, regulators and the government) developed demand management
approaches consistent with such concerns. Another distinctive feature of drought
campaigns in 2006 was the extent to which different regional water stakeholders
14
collaborated in the formulation of messages to the public. The ‘Beat the Drought’
campaign, for example, represented a joint initiative by eight water companies in the
south east, the Environment Agency and the Consumer Council for Water designed to
ensure that messages about the drought, although still issued by different companies
and agencies, were consistent and to show how different interest groups were working
together to alleviate the drought situation. Such methods were generally regarded a
success.
There were, however, some highly publicised situations where inconsistencies in
regional communication strategies were noted. In early 2006, national environmental
regulators urged consumers to be cautious in the use of water in order to avoid
standpipes (Defra 2006, Environment Agency 2006c). This was seen as misleading and
damaging by water companies, who regarded such a ‘draconian response’ as
standpipes as a last resort, implying deficiencies in abilities to manage their supply
systems. Another argument put forward by regional water managers was that the
Thames Water situation had contributed to a public misrepresentation of drought
coordination and management. They described how until the media controversy over
Thames missing their leakage target, south east companies had successfully worked
together to manage the drought. In relation to hosepipe bans another concern articulated
by managers was that the emergency restriction of water use sent out the wrong
message to consumers, what was needed instead was a continued and sustained
message to develop a sense of care and caution in water use as the norm rather than
only in exceptional circumstances. As the impacts of the drought were not spread
evenly over the south east region, managers in areas where resources were at relatively
healthy levels were prompted to question the relevance of restrictions for their
customers.
Our interviews with householders suggested the possibility of mixed interpretations of
communication messages. For example, many households drew on their own
experiences abroad to exemplify the perceived limitations of water systems at home.
They questioned if others living in hot and dry countries can have sprinklers going all day
and maintain swimming pools, why this should be so problematic in England. Some
householders suggested that the problem lay in a system built on providing pristine
drinking water for all purposes rather than utilising recycled or desalinised water. This
15
raises questions about whether communication campaigns, for example those designed
to change perceptions of England as a relatively dry country, will actually persuade
consumers to act more carefully in what they use, especially if the drought is perceived
as a wider failure of supply and distribution systems rather than attributed to a lack of
rainfall or excessive consumption.
3.4 CONSUMER PERCEPTIONS OF DROUGHT AND DEMAND MANAGEMENT
Previous studies have found that consumers are more likely to be more willing to
conform to water saving expectations if they are perceived to be fair and just (Consumer
Council for Water 2006, Sharp 2006). Following this logic consumer responses to
drought are likely to be based on how they perceived the drought and how they viewed
others or their own responsibility in contributing to this situation. With relation to the
1995-96 Yorkshire water crisis analysts have suggested that consumers were
unreceptive to drought management measures and critical of the utilities role in
producing scarcity through mismanagement of their networks (Bakker 2003, Haughton
1998). Indeed droughts often accentuate the persistence of a ‘blame culture’ in which
householders or water companies are held responsible for drought through either
profligate waste of water or inadequate maintenance of supply networks. Moving
beyond this simplistic argument about the attribution of blame or responsibility, we
examine how householders’ understandings of the 2006 drought were framed by the
media, their own personal, local and historical experiences, and their assessments of
responsibility.
3.4.1 Media representation and consumer perceptions of drought
Consumer experiences of drought communication and water saving campaigns varied
widely. While householders we interviewed recalled having received messages about
the drought or the need to save water with the bill, through the post or while out
shopping, few could remember the specific details. Many claimed that they did not have
the time to read information leaflets. Yet most householders had a clear sense that the
drought was a significant problem in 2006. Respondents commented on being aware of
‘the talk of the drought’, but were unsure how far this was a ‘real’ drought or whether
their general perceptions of drought severity were to be attributed to the intensification of
communication efforts by service providers or the media. Such issues played out in
16
wider discussions about climate change and the perceived intensification of water
pressures. One householder who had lived in East Anglia all his life explained how he
understood that this was a dry summer but questioned whether this was indicative of
wider climatic change or the consequence of heightened awareness through the media:
… though the climate has changed so we are getting less rain I think that’s
a combination of yes I’ve noticed a change but have I noticed because we
are, or have we noticed because we’re getting more information and I think
the truth of the matter is we get more information and we take in a lot more
information these days and it’s from every angle isn’t it. I mean you go on
the internet, there’s stuff on there, the television, radios, newspapers and
everything else. [Hhld 05]
Media reports and images failed, in some cases, to equate with the local situations in
which people found themselves. For example, reports about the hosepipe ban extending
into the winter were hard to equate with heavy rainfall experienced by some
householders.
I hear stories now, they say it’s going to be a struggle like this winter and I
find it quite amazing because the rain we’ve had, when we do get rain we
certainly get rain. I mean the last month I’d hate to think how much rain
we’ve had because it absolutely fell down. [Hhld 22]
Some suggested that the media had played a role in generating a sense of water
restrictions as a fairly normal feature of everyday life. While water companies have
levels of service to monitor the frequency of bans some householders were under the
impression that they were in a fairly constant cycle of summer restrictions:
To be honest, I’d say there’s been a hosepipe ban most years for as long
as I can remember. It’s so common. I think they’ve made a bigger deal out
of it this year, it’s more widely known that there’s a water problem or they’ve
taken it to the next stage. [Hhld 13]
17
While awareness of the drought was generally good, localised understandings of the
acuteness of the drought situation, or whether hosepipe bans were in force were not
always transparent especially in the earlier stages of the drought as the following
householder articulated:
I guess the TV talked lots about it but actually we didn’t know there was a
hosepipe ban, we were expecting to have a letter through the door… Yeah,
so we were quite cross about that because, you know, you’d sort of hear
that if someone saw you with a hosepipe you could get fined and yet we’d
had nothing to say that there was a definite hosepipe ban so really we are
not 100% sure, it’s just that you never see people using hoses and in fact
up until only about a month, or 6 weeks ago, my husband was always using
a hosepipe just to water the plants, and I said to him darling you mustn’t, I
said, because this is all I hear that they have got a hosepipe ban and I’ve
heard that you can get fined. [Hhld 01]
In this (and in other reported situations) householders questioned why
companies had not advised them individually of restrictions.
3.4.2 Personal experiences and perceptions of drought
Consumer understandings of water scarcity, and of the need to adapt, form over time
with relation to historical experiences of drought (Taylor et al 2007). An historical
perspective illuminates the changing evaluation of legitimate consumption and methods
to regulate it (Trentmann and Taylor 2006). Here we reflect on how householders
assessed the drought with relation to their own personal experiences of scarcity in the
past.
Droughts that households remembered most vividly were those associated with long hot
summers and captured in images of dry reservoirs, neither of which particularly equated
to the experience in 2006. July may have seen record temperatures (Met Office 2006)
but August and September were relatively wet. This was also to some extent an
‘invisible’ drought affecting mainly groundwater reserves hidden away underground.
Indeed some companies tried to make these more visible by commissioning TV
programmes showing diminishing water levels in boreholes. Whether such factors as the
18
reduced visibility of water scarcity influenced consumer understandings of drought is
debatable but it may help to explain why some households where not sure if they were
really experiencing a drought or not. Media reports that speculated on the real or
imaginary nature of the drought did little to alleviate this confusion (Adam 2006,
Barkham 2006, Winterman 2006).
The common point of reference for south east householders was 1976, which was
remembered not always as a ‘drought’ but as a long hot summer:
I remember there were times in London where they didn’t fill the local
paddling pool or stuff like that because it was a hot summer, you know,
there seemed to be a drought. [Hhld 01]
I can remember the summer of ’76 that they all go on about…I remember
the heat more than the problems I had with no water being around. [Hhld
16]
Householders’ perceptions of drought severity in 2006 were framed by recollections of
previous water saving campaigns introduced by companies at times of water stress:
Yes, I was only eight then [1976] but I remember it and I actually remember
that being far more severe than this one because there were a lot of things
around like not flushing the toilets, there was lot more. There seemed to be
a lot more specific things that you couldn’t do that I remember, you know,
certainly the hosepipe bans but I particularly remember something to do
with the toilets, not flushing the toilets. And the only thing I’ve really heard
this year was the hosepipe ban, I didn’t really hear a great deal other than
that. … [Hhld 15]
While hosepipes remained the firm focus of drought measures in 2006 and were also
restricted in 1976, it was another water saving device – the brick in the cistern - that had
captured people’s interest in previous drought situations and had become something of
a routine adjustment for householders. While flushing the toilet was also targeted during
the 2004-2006 drought, especially after the Mayor of London’s infamous speech
19
compelling Londoners to restrict the frequency of flushing (Muir 2005), the ‘brick in the
cistern’ campaign seemed to be emblematic of the drought in 1976 in the same way that
hosepipe restrictions became so in 2006. A question this raises is how changing ideas of
what should or should not be saved or restricted are attributable to changing social
conventions, while what people are asked to give up also frames their perception of the
severity of the water problem.
More dramatic methods used to conserve water in 1976 were the use of rota cuts or
standpipes (both rejected in 2006 on the grounds that they were a ‘draconian’ response
and unsuited to today’s customer service industry). Some householders recalled
situations in the past where supply had been restricted or cut off at certain times, and
how this had required new strategies for collecting and storing water:
I remember when we had a thing come round to say the water was going to
be cut off at certain days, at certain times and I remember my mum filling
saucepans and kettles and pots and pans up. [Hhld 09]
When thinking about the controversies more extreme drought strategies have generated,
for example with the cut off of supply, householders reflected on whether the same
strategies would be legitimate today and what sorts of practical and ethical problems
they would generate:
I think there were times definitely in London anyway, where they turned the
water off for certain times during the day… And I seem to remember, I
mean I was about 15 or 16 myself then [1976], but I can remember there
was outrage because there were the new mums and I think they kept it on
in hospitals, but I can remember there was water being turned off, I
remember that. So I suppose that sort of thing. I don’t know how you
would manage that and how you would monitor it because every home has
it’s own [supply], if you’ve got the very elderly, especially if the
temperatures are very high, to restrict the water usage might cause
problems I don’t know. I would imagine it would, and how would you be
selective? How would you say that that family can or can’t or that street
can or can’t, so I don’t know how that would work. [Hhld 20]
20
Demand management measures like standpipes and rota cuts may be controversial and
unsuited to today’s political climate, but previous experiences continue to have a bearing
on how people continue to perceive drought today and in the sorts of adaptations they
expect:
I do recall thinking quite early in the spring that unless we have a very wet
summer I can imagine us using the old standpipes, which I vaguely
remember using the last time they were out in ’76 … I just remember
vaguely whatever water containers you could find, walk down to the local
standpipe. And to be honest I was expecting to get to that situation this
year here, but perhaps now the worst of the pressure is off I guess, with the
weather having broken a bit. [Hhld 19]
3.4.3 Consumers’ assessments of responsibility for drought
For some interviewees, the drought they were experiencing in 2006 was
straightforwardly attributed to the weather: ‘well the lack of rain we’ve had, and that’s it
basically’. In such cases the alleviation of the crisis would be seen to depend on natural
interventions ‘give the grass some rain and it will soon turn green again’. But while
householders saw the drought as partly a meteorological and hydrological problem
(some people also reported seeing low flows in local rivers and low reservoir levels),
many speculated on the drought as a matter of network mismanagement (e.g. concerns
over high leakage levels from distribution pipes) implying that this was also to a degree a
crisis of institutional making.
Requests from companies to save water in the drought prompted consumers to think
about how far the alleviation of scarcity was a matter for themselves or for companies.
An association made clear by householders was the extent to which the perceived
actions, or inactions, of water companies informed the construction of concepts of
scarcity and the need to act:
You see a lot of reports on the television especially when obviously we had
this massive heat wave about how people were being irresponsible and I
mean the other thing it comes down to is the water companies isn’t it? It’s
21
fine everybody in their homes being economical and careful with their water
but they’ve got to get out there and solve their problems and their problems
are a damn sight bigger than ours are aren’t they? [Hhld 05]
Attributions of blame for the drought were not, however, defined in black and white, there
was widespread acknowledgement among the householders we interviewed of the need
for joint action to solve water problems:
It’s a dual thing, suppliers and consumers should be looking at how they
can save water, or suppliers how they could increase the supply and
consumers how they could save them. It’s got to be a dual thing. [Hhld 06]
Well I think it’s both sides of the coin needs to be addressed, the way
people use water domestically, they should just think twice about it before
using any sort of water or over-using water. But on the other side of the
coin, I know it’s an old chestnut, but the water companies, they lose a lot
more water than we do in terms of quantity. [Hhld 09]
Clearly, the ‘old chestnut’ of leakage played a significant part in framing peoples’
understanding of the crisis that played out in 2006 and in householders’ assessments of
where the balance of responsibility lay. Once again, however, this was not a clear-cut
case of consumer dissatisfaction with companies. The following quite is illustrative of
many examples in which householders indicated appreciation of the difficulties
managers faced in fixing leaks:
I’m a bit on their side as far as that’s concerned. I mean when you get a
massive great jet of water, like I’ve seen in the paper the other day, it was
going up fifty or sixty feet, you can’t just stop it just like that. … I mean the
system itself is years and years old, it needed work doing on it years ago. I
mean they can only do so much at a time can’t they? So I’m a bit on their
side as far as that goes. [Hhld 12]
22
For others leakage was clearly a source of frustration and prompted discussion of the
relative allocation of blame and responsibility between households and service
providers:
I feel annoyed that they’re putting all the emphasis on households when
they’re not doing their part. If they’re wasting it then they’re trying to make
us pay, you know, do certain measures for their wastage. I mean if their
house is in order then I think other people, households, would think ok let’s
put ours in order. But I’m not going to say I would discount them just
because of that but basically that would annoy you. [Hhld 03]
As this quote suggests, leakage on companies’ networks did not necessarily mean that
households felt themselves absolved of any duty to save water, but this was clearly an
area of some contention and raised questions about the fairness of targeting customers
for water saving. There was also a clear sense in which individual or company
responsibility for drought alleviation was fuelled by both personal experience of leakage
and what people had seen in the media:
I mean you see on the television and in papers where people are saying
this has been leaking outside my house for a fortnight and that they’re
aware of it and yet they have let it go on for a fortnight and that’s something
visible, how much is invisible? Do you know what I mean? If they’re not
going to come and repair something which is highly visible for a fortnight
and they’re still telling people there’s a water shortage you’ve got to be
careful how you do it, that doesn’t go down very well does it? People are
not going to take them seriously are they? So it’s a case of getting their
own house in order and I think other people will follow to be honest. [Hhld
03]
Yet even where leakage was perceived as a problem, householders understood that
there were particular pressures in the south east region that meant addressing leakage
was only part of the issue and that managing demand was also a priority. In the context
of managing future housing growth and population pressures and the likely exacerbation
of water scarcity, the need to manage demand was widely appreciated by householders,
23
but whether existing strategies were likely to be adequate was an area of some
contention.
Householders based their evaluations of drought intensity and severity in part on the
drought management measures implemented by companies and regulators but it should
be stressed that a positive perception of water companies was not necessarily an
indicator of willingness to take action on water saving. In areas where hosepipe bans
had not been imposed consumers queried whether they were facing a drought at all, and
suggested that perhaps companies had alleviated the immediate local crisis through
efficient water management:
I know that [the water company] are very good at what they do and I think
they are one of the best water companies in the country as far as dealing
with their leak problems…they haven’t got hosepipe bans and they’re
obviously managing their water quite well. [Hhld 05]
Well I’ve seen it all but I know when you read the national papers it always
seems to be Thames Water that’s the people that are wasting it and the
impression I’ve got is that [the water company] has - because it’s never had
a lot - it’s had to look after it, because this is the driest part of the country.
[Hhld 04]
Householder’s confidence in the ability of their water company to manage resources had
interesting implications when it came to how they thought about responsibilities towards
water saving and wastage:
I think [the company] does seem to look after their water so we very rarely
do get a hosepipe ban. So, you know, I’m now of the opinion that I will use
it, you know I won’t waste it but I will use it because there were years when
I would leave the garden and it would just dry up, but I think well, you know,
I’ve paid so I will use it just for what I want to use it for. [Hhld 04]
24
3.5 CONCLUSION
The communication campaigns during the drought appear to support arguments about a
shift in UK water planning towards building bridges between companies and their
customers (Howarth 1999). Consumers are seen as part of the solution, rather than part
of the problem (Parnell and Larsen 2005). The campaigns initiated before and during
the drought aimed to enrol consumers into a process of engaging in change to prevent
increased severity of drought restrictions. Yet, current strategies, based on
communication campaigns and restricting non-essential use, are limited by their
underlying assumptions of how people attribute responsibility for water problems and
make rational or normative decisions about water use. There are some important
considerations that emerge from our analysis:
• Householders were unclear whether increased media representation of the drought
represented the ‘real’ significance of water shortage, how wider ‘south east’
coverage related to their local circumstances, and expressed some confusion over
the status of their area and water restrictions.
• People’s understanding of the severity of scarcity was based in part on their own
personal experience and interpretations of the visibility of previous droughts,
including reservoir levels as well as water company activity (for example often
contrasting 2006 with 1976).
• Householders’ assessments of relative responsibility for drought included recognition
of unusual weather conditions and the difficulties of managing leakage.
Respondents also recognised a need to manage future demand in the south east as
they saw new homes being built and signs of population influx in their
neighbourhoods. Ironically, the visibility of effective management by water
companies can sometimes mean people think there is no need to save water.
25
CHAPTER 4 - EVERYDAY PRACTICES AND NORMAL CONSUMPTION
4.1 INTRODUCTION
The first objective of the drought and demand research was: to see how consumers
respond to drought and to examine the resilience of specific household practices. The
examination of consumer perceptions of the drought and responses of companies partly
addresses this issue, but does not explain what people actually do. In this chapter we
turn our attention to how people account for the everyday activities they undertake that
lead to water consumption. By focusing on practices of everyday life we can start to see
more clearly what is at stake for people in thinking about ‘normal’ water consumption,
and thereby identify what is or is not negotiable or modifiable in relation to water use.
We begin the chapter by highlighting the importance of diversity in water consuming
practices. We then take in turn key factors shaping such diversity, namely, meanings
and values of water use, social conventions, routines and habits, and household
technology. We conclude with a discussion about the implications for understanding
change in normal practices of consumption.
4.2 DIVERSITY IN WATER PRACTICES
Sociological and historical studies of water crises demonstrate significant diversity in
household strategies, resilience and how wastage is understood (Selby 2003, Taylor et
al 2007, Trentmann and Taylor 2006). Taking account of the diversity of consumption
practices and of the variability in the ways people adapt, our analysis of household
practices is framed by a number of key questions: What does the drought reveal about
contemporary definitions of ‘normal’, ‘wasteful’ or ‘irrational’ water use? How do
consumers distinguish between ‘optional’ and ‘necessary’ water use during the drought?
What do processes of adaptation and resilience reveal about the longer term role of
consumers in managing demand?
The analysis we present in this chapter draws upon examples across different water
consumer practices (e.g. showering, bathing, laundering, dishwashing and toilet
flushing). By way of introduction Table 4.1 describes some of the variation and diversity
we found when trying to understand what shapes and sustains these different household
26
practices. We have identified four groups of factors that we elaborate in subsequent
sections. The first of these sections explores the multiple values and meanings that
water invokes for householders in everyday life to help explain how attachments to
certain technologies and practices form, and meanings of essential and non-essential
use develop. Second we focus on the role of social conventions in defining normal or
proper water consuming practices. A third aspect we investigate is how routines and
habits of everyday life are formed out of social interactions and collective understandings
of normal activities. Fourth we address how domestic technologies and attachments to
water infrastructures influence the structuring of household activities. In addressing each
of these aspects we indicate the very different routes through which household water
consumption is constituted and identify implications for shaping possibilities of change.
27
Table 4.1: Diversity in water practices
Bathing Showering Laundering Dishwashing Toilet flushing
Meanings & Values
Lingering & relaxing soak
Playtime for children
Private time for adults
Relieving aches and pains
Reviving ‘wake up’ call
Relaxing evening ‘wind down’
Sensation of fierce jet of water
Clean and fresh clothes
Comfort sensation of clean sheets
Hygiene & sterilization qualities
Aesthetics of sparkling dishes
Orderliness of tidy kitchen
Hygiene and health association
Social convention
Sharing bathwater in large families
Essential for young children
Essential for teenagers
Efficient method of cleaning
Daily change of clothes for work, school, gym
Good childcare practice
Clean dishes after every meal
Tidy away rather than reuse cups/glasses
Unhygienic not to flush
Not flushing at night to avoid disturbance
Not restricting flow
Routines & habits
Weekly bath
After working in the garden
Daily treat
Quick shower before work
Longer shower for intensive washing (e.g. hair)
Freshening up after sports
Intensive cleaning after ‘mucky’ jobs
Increased frequency in hot weather
Increased loads for holidays
Daily work or leisure obligations
Habits of full load, one load a day/week
Special loads in preparation for visitors
More on good drying days
Daily load or when basket is full
Intensive use for parties and especially Christmas
Habitual and automatic flushing after each use
Short, long and double flushing
Less regular overnight
Household technology & infrastructure
Size of hot water tank
Water pressure & waiting to fill
Water pressure and power or jet
Defining normal, economy or half load
Availability of tumble dryer or central heating
Capacity of dishwasher and number of dishes owned
Household space for dishwasher
Different cistern sizes, gadgets and pressure
28
4.3 MULTIPLE MEANINGS AND VALUES OF WATER
Water is both ‘physically and symbolically a vital connective fluid encoded with powerful
meanings as a source of life and health’ (Strang 2006: p10). Water is also encoded with
more ephemeral meanings such as relaxation, pleasure and entertainment (Strang
2006). Water pumped into dwellings is converted into physical health, energy and
cleanliness, as well as green lawns and decorative water features with purely aesthetic
purpose (Strang 2004, 2006). And within such dwellings engagements with water are
experienced and interpreted within particular social and cultural contexts. These few
observations drawn from recent social and cultural research make a critical distinction
between understandings of water as simply H2O – an abstract pool of resources – or as
a more fluid entity with multiple meanings and values in everyday life (Chappells et al
2001, Illich 1985, Strang 2004).
Clearly people valued water for the basic life-giving property of hydration, but even in
respect of drinking practices different types of waters (tap or bottled, hard or soft, fizzy or
flat, tepid or cold) held different associations for different people in different social
contexts and situations. For example, interviewees expressed preferences for cold, fresh
tap water or for filtered water, or for hard or soft varieties that they had become
accustomed too. While bottled water was valued for its fizziness, or for convenience
when on holiday, or to take to school or work, the idea of carrying gallons of water home
from the supermarket was considered irrational given the cost, quality and convenience
of drinking water from the tap. The health giving properties of water were of more vital
significance, especially for elderly householders or those who had recently suffered
bouts of poor health. For example, one respondent who had been diagnosed with
diabetes commented that:
Well I drink a lot more and eat a bit less…being a diabetic you have to be
careful about that…But I drink a lot more now than I would do normally,
water mostly. [Hhld 08]
Another householder had recently undergone a couple of operations and explained how
this had increased the need for drinking water:
29
I seem to be forever filling up the filter, maybe we do have quite a lot, and
I’ve been in and out of hospital for a couple of ops [operations] the last
couple of years so I’ve been encouraged to drink plenty. [Hhld 07]
Aside from the physical need for water to maintain healthy bodies, other householders
talked about how different experiences involving water fulfilled more therapeutic needs;
for example, soaking in the bath to get rid of aches and pains, or the restorative or
uplifting role of gardening and tending to plants. Already from these few examples we
can begin to see the multiple associations that water has in people’s lives and how this
shapes the relative ‘need’ for water.
Focusing on practices of bathing and showering proves to be even more revealing in
terms of understanding the multiple meanings that water can hold for different
households or family members, not only with respect to basic cleanliness, but in
performing a number of roles (see Box 4.2). As well as a place to get clean, the
bathroom was regarded as one of the few private spaces in the home providing solitude.
Languishing in the bath was a form of relaxation, a retreat from the demands of daily life,
or a comforting treat on cold days. Showers were a place for freshening up, cooling
down or invigorating the senses. Showering was about the convenience of getting clean
instead of taking a bath, particularly, for example, in the mornings. By contrast
showering was also a way of relaxing in the evening, of ‘washing away the hassles of
the day’. Indeed showering typically performed a number of roles in one:
My son is a roofer, so he comes home and normally spends about half an
hour in the shower in the evenings because he’s usually covered in roof
dust and cement and stuff. And I think that’s his way, and it’s part of his
relaxation thing is to have a long shower. [Hhld 20]
Showering is not so much one practice, therefore, as a number of practices oriented
around different combinations of cleanliness, convenience, invigoration and relaxation.
30
Box 4.2: Multiple meanings of bathing or showering
I just spend ages in the bath, I fall asleep in the bath, I read in the bath it’s quite relaxing. [Hhld 18]
It’s convenient [the shower], but then I like a bath as well, I don’t think there’s anything quite like a bath. We
notice it when we’re on holiday don’t we? The shower is very convenient but it’s nice to have a soak
sometimes. [Hhld 05]
I’m quick [in the shower], I don’t sort of stay in there forever, I wash and that’s it out sort of thing. Whereas my
son, when he’s in the bath, he’s not using water but he tends to sort of lay there and read a book. I mean,
that’s why he has a bath because he just relaxes in the bath. He does have the occasional shower. [Hhld 06]
I bath every day. My wife perhaps every other day, it’s one pleasure that I really enjoy in my retirement, that I
can actually have a bath and enjoy it, not a two minute jump in and out, like when I was at work, because I
hadn’t got time to do anything else. I really enjoy my bath and I’m not going to give that up. [Hhld 10]
And I think a bath is a bit more than just a bath, it’s become a bit of relaxation experience of all sorts, so it’s
become something else as well. [Hhld 15]
No, I’ve never been one for soaking in the bath. I know some people can sort of have their candles burning
and music and to me the bath is just for getting clean and you can get clean under the showers. So it’s just
not something that I find relaxing…My husband prefers the actual fierceness of the jets; you get a real water
flow on it. [Hhld 16]
While I could be convinced to use the shower, there’s no way in the world my wife would, she absolutely loves
her bath and especially with two little children, that’s her chance to have ten minutes peace and quiet on her
own you know. Even if we had the best shower in the world I think she’d still use a bath. [Hhld 19]
It would just be if I’d got the time, if I was feeling particularly tired, a bit cold - there’s nothing like a hot bath to
warm you up - then I would have a bath. [Hhld 22]
I don’t like the water on my face, I can’t stand it. I don’t mind washing my hair but I have to keep drying my
face but I don’t like water on my face, not splashing water. [Hhld 09]
31
Taking a bath or a shower relates to both personal preferences (the sensation of flowing
water was valued by some but not by others) and the specific type of experience being
sought. Indeed, the different roles of bathing or showering varied substantially between
different members of the household:
The shower that we’d got was pathetic. It was OK for myself and my
husband but with teenagers who want quick powerful showers and both of
them have got long thick hair. They were complaining, we just sort of felt
well okay. It’s just all peer pressure isn’t it with kids, teenagers, you know
[mimics] ‘so and so has got a nice bathroom’, just things like that isn’t it.
[Hhld 01]
Showers therefore offer a quite specific technology geared towards the different needs
(power showers for a fierce jet or the intense cleaning of long hair) and lifestyles of
parents, workers, teenagers, and children. Bathing or showering also takes on
generational roles. For example, baths were regarded as essential for both washing and
entertaining young children, but showers were considered by many as a must for
teenagers. The attachment to the shower for the teenagers mentioned in the above
quote, for example, was seen as so strong that their mother commented ‘I think if we
were to turn round and say we’re not having a power shower any more there’d be mutiny
because they really do enjoy that’, while other families made similar associations
between the implied need for particular forms of bathing for youngsters:
No, the boys used to but they don’t now. They probably used to up until
two years ago because they used to like having a bath and playing in the
bath. But now they like the shower, it’s quicker. [Hhld 17]
We’ve always, well when the children were little obviously they used to like
their baths but since they’ve grown up nobody baths at all. [Hhld 03]
Even in situations where household members themselves rarely or never used the bath
anymore, the expectation that potential buyers of their homes might was enough to
justify maintaining this bathroom feature:
32
My husband would rather have a large shower cubicle than have a bath
because nobody uses the bath but there again other people say there is
this great thing at the moment that if you want to sell your house never get
rid of the bath. [Hhld 03]
Discussions with families about their bathing practices produced some illuminating
reflections on shifting intergenerational values, and how bathing preferences today were
formed out of specific social and cultural experiences. A number of householders talked
about the demise of the bath and how childhood experiences had helped to define or
cement a particular bathing affiliation:
Yes we have a bath but I don’t think we’ve ever, since 1987, I don’t think
we’ve ever used the bath. I mean myself personally the last time I had a
bath was about 1960. I can’t sit down in my own dirty water.
For one interviewee in particular, bath time held a special significance that particularly
illustrates the complex associations people have with bathing and water and how these
are formed out of changing social relations, domestic arrangements, and family
circumstances (see Box 4.3).
33
Box 4.3: An example of the changing practices of bathing
I mean at home we never had showers, it was always baths, and I was in a large family so we
did share water. That was quite a common practice and you didn’t bath as often because, well
I was one of nine kids, my parents fostered, so I didn’t lie in it [the bath] often, although saying
that as a teenager it was the only time that I would have with my mum because it was a big
family so invariably I’d get in the bath and I’d sort of lay in the bath but often not too long
because it would get cold for my mum, perhaps I’d put a bit more hot water in, but I was laying
there and she’d sit on the side and we’d chat and then she’d get in the bath and I’d stand
drying and chat. So it was quite a good social time on that score. But that is a very different
habit to now. It has very much changed. Habits have changed haven’t they?
…And I mean my girls wouldn’t dream of me coming into the bathroom now…Now they’re
older it’s definitely showers, now that we have a power shower obviously. Beforehand they
would shower in the morning but if they hadn’t showered in the morning and if they were up
early perhaps for next morning, they might have a bath the night before, more so in the winter,
certainly not in the summer, but they might have a bath in the winter and unfortunately they
wouldn’t dream of sharing water…It was stipulated by my parents that you shared water
because you had to, that was it, not because they were on a water meter or anything. But I
guess we’ve not had to do that. When they were young they shared water because they
bathed together but, you know, they obviously get of an age where they don’t want to do that
any more and that’s it. [Hhld 01]
Summary: Multiple meanings of water and fluid needs
Focusing on the example of showering and bathing practices, and the shifting
relationship between them, illustrates the multiple meanings and values that water holds
for different householders, and how these come together to create certain expectations
and needs. Examination of a range of other household practices revealed diversity in
values; for example, the value of dishwashing to produce sterile and sparkling dishes, or
of laundering in providing clean and fresh clothes. Understanding what different
practices mean in the lives of different household members is important in explaining
aspects such as the increased frequency or duration of certain practices. Some
practices were more deeply ingrained in the daily routines of householders, such as the
need for a bath or shower after physical work, while others appeared to be more easily
34
renegotiated (for example the need to wash the car or water the lawn). Further research
of such variability and diversity might help to explain what people might be prepared to
give up, modify or even exchange for alternative practices to achieve the same ends.
�
4.4 SOCIAL CONVENTIONS SHAPING OBLIGATIONS
Householders’ contemplations on bathing or showering and its changing meaning, within
families and across generations, illustrates the ways in which practices are shaped by
social convention and obligation (for example by a duty to look after children and
teenagers). If we are to explain the dynamics of householders’ practices we first need to
understand the social contexts through which meanings emerge, that is, the interaction
between personal and historical experiences along with social rules, conventions and
norms structuring domestic life (Shove 2003, Kaufmann 1998).
Cleaning practices (encompassing personal hygiene, washing dishes or laundering
clothes) seemed to be an area were opportunities for adaptation were more contested
and constrained (compared to say washing the car or watering the lawn). Previous
studies suggest that even people who are very conscious of the need to save water find
it difficult to make more than minor compromises on water use associated with personal
hygiene or environmental health (Strang 2004). While interviewees did distinguish
between the necessities of different forms of cleaning practices (for example one
interviewee compared the essentialness of cleaning a hospital to the non-essentialness
of cleaning a car or washing windows), attachments to personal cleanliness habits were
often strong:
I think when it comes down to personal cleanliness, that’s going to be a bit
of tough one to go without. [Hhld 06]
If I can’t use my washing machine or my dishwasher, then that might be a
problem [Hhld 22]
I mean one thing I do feel bad about is you know, the washing machine
because that’s on a lot but with three small children it’s sort of necessary it
seems. [Hhld 14]
35
With relation to understanding how cleaning practices in the home come to be taken as
necessary, Shove (2003) argues that concepts of what is right and proper are of vital
importance. In the case of laundering, for example, we might expect practices to relate
to shifting concepts of cleanliness in society, embracing ideas about what is hygienic, or
what is socially acceptable (with regard to dirt, sweat, freshness and so on). The
associations made by our households with relation to concepts of cleanliness appeared
to largely support this argument, for example:
I think my greatest indulgence is the washing machine because I just you
know, we wear things and we wash them because they get very grubby
with the children… I think when they are babies, I think you are always
washing because they are sick all the time and there’s bedding and things
like that… And you sort of, it’s not the done thing to go around in grubby
clothes. (Hhld 14)
For parents of young children it was clear that ‘grubbiness’ was not accepted and that
frequent washing loads were regarded as a necessary and non-negotiable fact-of-life.
Yet the assessment of when an item of clothing was ‘smelly’ or ‘dirty’ and needed to be
washed varied significantly between different household members attributed by
interviewees to generational differences in standards of cleanliness:
I will wear a top until it’s dirty. We all wear deodorant, it’s not smelly, so if it
was clean I would put it on tomorrow whereas I think my girls would take it
off, put it in the wash bin to be washed. [Hhld 03]
I know with my own family, they only wear anything once and it’s got to be
washed. Well perhaps I would wear it twice, like some shirt I might wear it
today and wear it again tomorrow morning. But our girl would only go out in
a blouse in the evening and it’s got to be in the wash. (Hhld 12)
36
Our son in particular, if he gets an idea in his head he wants to wear a
particular shirt, you know, sometimes being able to do a quick wash is
fantastic. [Hhld 19]
Despite the demands of children and teenagers for particular items to be in a constant
cycle of wash and wear, laundry regimes were also controlled by particular domestic
rules informed by things such as load size (a full machine or washing basket):
… I mean Helen, she gets a bit uppity, you know what teenagers are like, I
want this specific top and I want it tomorrow and I’ve worn it again today,
but that’s hard luck. In this house she has to wait. It might be tomorrow
before the machine goes on and there’s a full load and so she’ll have to
wait. The machine will certainly not go on in this house unless it’s full. Well
it’s not difficult to fill with some people. [Hhld 05]
The meaning of full load varied widely and, as another of our householders suggested,
an overfull washing machine might not provide the standard of cleanliness required (or
might require another rinse to wash out residual washing powder):
I’ve noticed, it’s all very well being told to really fill your machine, but I don’t
think they wash quite so well, you do see a difference. [Hhld 07]
There were other rules, external to the household, that structured the need for clean
clothes and shaped interpretations of what counted as clean for a particular purpose.
People who worked at home during the day often did not see the need for a fresh set of
clothes each day, but some jobs required the clean uniform or freshly washed and
pressed shirt, for example:
The oldest one does work, his work clothes, he’s generally needing,
obviously he works somewhere where he needs a fresh uniform every day.
[Hhld 21]
37
Different washing cycles also depended on the demand of the clothing in question, as
well as convenience. For example, the decision to use a long cycle for ‘stuff that is
absolutely filthy’ compared to a shorter one for ‘just freshening things up’.
Householders emphasised the relationship between laundering practices and
conventions of wastage, not only defined in relation to water saving but to aspects such
as limiting the use of washing detergents or electricity use:
If anything it’s more governed by the fact that I want to make sure I get
most use out of the washing powder or you know the capsules. So there’s
an element of the water usage and just it being more efficient, put more
clothes in, but it’s probably more governed by the just making sure I get the
best value out of the wash. [Hhld 15]
Another practice that appeared to invoke responses about what was right and proper
was toilet flushing. In 2005 the Mayor of London courted controversy when he asked
Londoners to refrain from flushing the toilet each time (Muir 2005). But while the idea of
not flushing every time was implied to be a choice by politicians this was regarded by
some consumers as a compromise too far with relation to standards of hygiene:
We’d do whatever we could to lessen what we use and how we use it.
There is one thing though that my parents, a few years ago, there was a
thing about water, my mum especially; she said that about not flushing the
loo. I think that’s absolutely awful. The lady next door as well, the old lady,
when she used to live there, she used to say, I don’t flush my loo every time
she said, I only flush it once a day. I think no, it’s unhygienic. [Hhld 09]
In the exceptional situations where people had to go without water it was often the toilet
that generated the most distaste and challenged accepted standards, as in the case of a
householder who described how they had suffered disruption to water supply on a
business trip abroad:
We were buying bottled water to try and wash. We had the sea to go in but
I mean that is great when it’s actually, when you are actually swimming but
38
not very good when it dries off and makes all your skin itchy. I mean it’s not
good in every part. But not to have flowing water for the toilet, ghastly. We
were all hiding round the door waiting for the guy to go along and put a
fresh sheet of newspaper over the toilet and then go, you know, be the first
one. But it was horrible, absolutely horrible. Euphoria when it came
through the pipes at three o’clock in the morning, the whole hotel woke up.
[Hhld 10]
While not flushing per se was considered unhygienic by the standards of some people,
not flushing at night time appeared to bring into play a different set of conventions. For
example a number of households reported that they rarely or never flushed anyway at
night time so not as to disturb other family members or neighbours (see Box 4.4).
39
Box 4.4: Noise and the conventions of the night time flush
That started off simply because our eldest [child] was an extremely light sleeper. So it originally started off
we didn’t want to flush because of all the noise it made. But that’s just kind of stuck, he’s now five years
old…and if anybody goes for a wee in the night they just leave it and it gets flushed first thing in the
morning…and with the drought going on it just seems the sensible thing to stick to that and save a bit of
water really. [Hhld 19]
I put bleach in the toilet before we go to bed at night and tell the girls and boys not to flush, so we don’t
flush at night if at all possible unless it’s really necessary… I’ve always done that in saving water. I’ve
always done it in that respect, unless you have to flush it then they flush it but I mean I think if it is just for a
short purpose, why not put a bit of bleach in it, it kills any odour and germs and things like that and bleach
is cheap these days to buy. [Hhld 02]
The only thing I don’t do and I think it’s because when people were asleep we got in the habit of not doing
it at night, during the night. If anybody goes to the loo in the night nobody flushes it, it’s not flushed until
the morning - well unless like, you know, just for urine. It’s just a habit that nobody flushes it during the
night for waking anybody up, just doesn’t. [Hhld 03]
Well in the night because of you know, obviously waking each other up, we sort of leave that in the night
until the morning don’t we? … No we’ve always been like that I mean, if you flush the toilet it wakes
everybody up doesn’t it? [Hhld 12]
Not flushing at night time appeared to be an area where people had become ‘locked-
into’ particular routines or habits that had ‘seemed to stick’ without any obvious
connection to deliberate campaigns for water saving. Yet toilet flushing was also
mediated by a range of newer water saving gadgets promoted by companies. To be
accepted by householders, water conserving modifications (people mentioned water
efficient cistern devices such as elephants or hippos) had to fit with idea of a ‘proper
flush’ (i.e. eliminating waste and not leaving any trace of matter behind):
We have thought about sort of putting a brick in and that sort of thing, but I
like to think, you know, if it needs that much water to flush it so I’m not
particularly keen on restricting it. [Hhld 04]
40
I think there was something that came and then that changed into a porous
bag but we found that because that then took, I don’t know, a third of the
capacity of the flushing away, it wasn’t flushing properly so then we
removed it…….but I think when we had it half, because of the reduction of
the availability of the flush, that didn’t seem to be flushing properly and my
wife was having particular problems at that time and when we moved it we
felt as though we were getting, you’d do one flush and it cleared most
times. It was just a nuisance if you’ve got to do it twice, why have the thing
in there to only put half in, so we moved it. [Hhld 07]
Along with laundering and toilet flushing, dishwashing was a practice that prompted
householders to revaluate conventions of hygiene and cleanliness. One set of issues
focused on the ability of the dishwasher to wash things at a higher temperature than
would be possible for hand washing at the sink. This was seen as especially important
for items like babies bottles, as well as for avoiding germs or infections:
Well hygiene actually as much as anything because they obviously clean
things at quite a high temperature and there were bottles going in and
things like that. But it was also just ease of workload you know, just not
having to wash up. And it’s certainly something I’d hate to be without now
[Laughs]. I really enjoy it yes, and it does clean things beautifully, you
know, things are really clean out of it. Whereas you feel that you couldn’t
get that consistently that clean. [Hhld 14]
Yes because we felt it was more hygienic and less effort. We had a friend,
he had Hepatitis B, and they had a dishwasher and their doctor said the
reason the rest of them didn’t get it was because they washed up in the
dishwasher. [Hhld 04]
Different dishes and types of dirt required certain washing regimes, for example, the
need to scrub dirty pots and pans to remove caked in dirt was typically seen as beyond
the abilities of most automatic dishwashers, while ‘pretty glasses’ needed special
manual care and were not trusted to a machine. Householders also debated the need
41
for rinsing and whether this was considered socially acceptable or as wasteful, for
example, before putting things in the dishwasher:
I’ve got a friend and she rinses everything and I think why ever do you do
that. No I just put it straight in. Because it does a rinse before it starts
anyway. It does a quick rinse…And the stuff is cleaner, your glasses come
out sparkling. [Hhld 04]
As in the earlier laundering example, the routine need to rinse was often justified with
relation to wider questions of waste that went beyond water, for the following household
the need to conserve filters:
I do sometimes if the plates are really grubby, I’ll do a quick rinse under the
tap. I know some people are considered mad for doing that but I sort of
tend to think it, I don’t know if it prolongs the life of the filters or whatever, I
mean obviously filters can be changed. You forget what you do really; it’s
awful isn’t it? [Hhld 14]
In other cases, rinsing was regarded as a health issue, linked to changing concerns
about the need to wash off suds and soaps after using detergents as in the following
example:
No I do it to get rid of the Fairy Liquid soap, I used not to. It may be more
health conscious I don’t know because I leave most of it to drip dry on the
drain apart from cutlery and glasses and things like that. So it just came to
me that I have got into the habit now of rinsing now. [Hhld 07]
The dishwasher was acknowledged by many interviewees as a convenient place to store
dishes and ‘hide them away’ while waiting to be washed in the evening. This storage
facility was seen by most as preferable to the visible pile of dirty dishes stacked on the
draining board, but questions arose about how long people might let things sit around for
and how hygienic this was:
42
‘I suppose the thing with a dishwasher is it’s hidden away whereas if you’ve
got it on the side you know, you notice it more…Personally if that was me
with one of those I’d think all those dirty pots in there, I’d have to wash
them and that’s what I would think’. [Hhld 12]
Summary: Social conventions and ideas of ‘proper’ practice
It has been suggested that conventions of cleanliness have radically altered in the space
of only a few decades, with people striving to achieve higher standards of cleanliness
and sanitation with relation to bodies and clothing (Shove 2003). Everyday practices of
laundering, toilet flushing and dishwashing appear to be strongly framed by social
conventions and rules about what is considered right and proper in terms of hygiene or
cleanliness. These conventions also determine what counts as necessary or wasteful.
However, domestic standards, relating to hygiene or cleanliness, do not apply to all
situations at all times. Routines were, however, modified in relation to other priorities,
e.g. not flushing the toilet at night to avoid disturbance of neighbours, getting the best
value for money from washing power, rinsing to save the dishwater filter, and time. In
this context the challenge of tackling escalating standards of cleanliness that drive up
water demand lies in developing new social barometers of what is normal or proper,
understanding the processes through which pre-existing sustainable conventions (e.g.
not flushing at night) take root, and exploring the role of household technologies in
redefining standards of sanitation and hygiene.
4.5 ROUTINES, HABITS AND HOUSEHOLD DYNAMICS
If we analyse water consuming practices as ‘embedded in the flow of everyday life’
(Shove 2003:p162) then to understand water demand, we need to look at the patterns of
everyday routines and habits and how these evolve. While householders in our study
talked of how certain activities were ‘just an automatic thing’ (for example flushing the
toilet each time they went or rinsing dishes out of habit), there was considerable
variation related to how practices were shaped by other daily commitments, schedules
and activities.
43
Routines and habits of householders emerged from wider sets of practices and
obligations, for example going to work or getting children to bed, and were strongly
connected to issues of time and convenience. The frequency and duration of showering
was often defined in relation to work commitments, for example the need for a quick
shower in the morning if going out to work or for those who were retired the time for a
more leisurely washing regime. Different household laundry routines meanwhile related
to the production of clothes for the range of activities that different family members were
engaged in, for example, in explaining the need to wash more than one load a day the
father of three teenage boys explained that:
It’s just the general consumption of what we actually get through. I play a
lot of sports; the youngest does a lot of sports. The oldest one he needs a
fresh uniform every day. And my work clothes and stuff like that. If you are
out for the day obviously you are stuck with what you’ve got on. If you are
actually here, depending on what I’m doing and what the kids were doing
you might get through two sets of clothes a day, if we are here during the
day and then going out in the evening. (Hhld 16)
Childcare duties, work or leisure activities were a common explanatory factor for more
frequent washing loads. However, washing routines were also defined in relation to
concerns about economizing as well as the demands of different fabrics and materials:
It’s run overnight which makes quite a difference to the electric bill to run it
at night, so we do one wash at night and each day is a different wash. So
hopefully it will reduce the cost of the wash and you segregate them out
you know, divide them off so that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, you’ve
done three washes at different cycles. [Hhld 07]
While householders described having a particular washing or laundering routine that
they generally tried to adhere to under ‘normal’ circumstances, these regimes turned out
to be rather more flexible in reality. Shift workers highlighted how washing frequency
varied considerably between work and non-work days:
44
On a daily basis, freshen up the towels, those once a week and then just
the general clothes that we’re going through, bed sheets once a week, and
all the other bits and pieces but in general I think it’s two or three times a
day. That’s while I’m here, which might be a bit more infrequent with my
shifts. If I’m on days it’s 6.30 in the morning until 7 at night. Consequently
things get put on the back burner a bit and I try to catch up on my days
off…Consequently on the days when I’m not here it won’t be on as much,
maybe I’ll just try and pick away at it and just do one when I get home and
stick it out and that will be about it really. [Hhld 21]
Weekend practices varied significantly from those of weekdays. Annual holidays were
also significant factors in explaining the dynamics of demand and the unpredictability of
it within the context of normal routines; for example, one household explained that their
one week holiday generated nine loads of washing, considerably more than would
normal patterns of life:
Holiday time, if you go away for a week, you come back with loads of
washing when you come home. With the children not wearing uniform they
are wearing sometimes two outfits a day, definitely more when they are not
in school. [Hhld 22]
Interruptions to routines imply the need for understanding household dynamics and how
these structure the intensity of different practices and temporality of demand. When
represented in terms of an average unit of consumption, it is easy to think of the
household as a static object with standard input and output variables but households are
inherently dynamic. The diaries kept by householders, which recorded details of their
water related routines on ‘typical’ and ‘atypical’ days, illustrated the variability of water
use in the home and that there was no such thing as an ‘average’ day regarding water
use. Table 4.5 extracts details from the water diaries of three ‘average’ four person
households that recorded the differences between water consuming activities on self-
defined ‘routine’ days (for example a normal workday) and ‘non-routine’ days. While we
might think about daily, weekly, monthly or seasonal patterns of water use, this simple
illustration shows how regular patterns were disrupted by, for example, visitors, people
coming to stay, holidays, accidents, and parties. As well as the potential to increase the
45
number of people consuming water, such dynamics often triggered the intensification of
water consuming activities over the summer. This has particular implications when
thinking about what conjunction of activities explains the dynamics of peak demand.
46
Table 4.5: Variations between routine and non-routine practice
Routine (normal activities)
Non-routine (extra activities)
Household A Routine day: one person at home, other family members at work Non-routine day: weekend with 20 people over for barbeque in afternoon and hot weather.
4 x showers 8 x brushing teeth (am and pm) 10 x toilet flushes 2 x bottles of water filled for work 1 x load of washing 1 x kettle filled for coffee 2 x bowls water dishwashing 3 x glasses drinking water 2 x pints for rinsing vegetables ¼ x pint cooking water 2 x water bowls for animals Watering tubs in evening
2 x extra pints cooking water 5 x extra washing up bowls Water for washing down BBQ 3 x extra pints drinking water Ice for drinks 2 x extra kettles tea and coffee
Household B Routine day: mother at home, father at work, and children out at school. Non-routine day: bank holiday Monday with whole family at home, friends visiting and dry weather.
2 x showers (parents) 2 x washes (children) 8 x tooth brushing 1 x load of washing 1 x bucket to wash kitchen floor Cleaning bathroom and kitchen 10 x toilet flushes 2 x kettle for coffee 1 x saucepan water cooking 4 x glasses drinking water 1 dishwasher load (full) 1 watering can (tomato plants)
2 x baths (children in place of weekday wash) 2 x extra kettles (friends came round) 8 x glasses drinking water 7 x extra toilet flushes Extra hand washing (children) after playing outside 4 x washing up bowls (extra barbeque washing-up)
Household C Routine day: normal Saturday with family of four at home. Non-routine day: family to stay for summer holidays, paddling pool out and BBQ.
6 x showers 8 x teeth cleaning 3 x washing machine loads 1 x washing up bowl 5 x buckets of water to clean up spilt paint 1 x bowl water shaving 1 x bucket washing floors Watering house plants 1 x kettle 1 x water filter Toilet flushing (multiple unspecified) 1-2 pints drinking water
8 x extra people using toilets and showers in morning 3 x extra washing loads (so family don’t have to take dirty washing home) Filling paddling pool with cold water using hosepipe Filling old water bottles for fridge Spraying hosepipe for a short while 3 x extra showers in the evening Paddling pool water used for flower beds and vegetable plot
47
Shove (2003) suggests that while new practices sometimes arise as a consequence of
explicit challenges to routine, for example when innovative technologies are launched or
adopted, they also emerge through barely visible adaptations and adjustments ‘as habits
erode and couples slip into new routines’ (p163-164). A key question in relation to this
idea is in what ways changes in household behaviour related to the drought (and
especially the imposition of restrictions), or whether adaptations and adjustments in
household routines were attributed to other factors?
Analysis of household water diaries indicated that people had made many minor
modifications to their routines over the summer in the context of the drought and
associated restrictions but this was not only motivated by water saving potential. Cutting
back on watering plants from twice to once a day, or reusing paddling pool water on
plants, were considered convenient as well as being more water efficient. Washing the
car with a new ‘waterless’ cleaning fluid was described not only as a water saving
strategy but as a quicker, less messy and more efficient alternative. The influence of
social interactions on defining an appropriate level of adaptation was also noted by
householders; diaries recorded how observing friends or neighbours trying to save water
had acted as a motivation to try out their own water saving techniques (for example
installing a water butt).
However, the drought did not seem to have effected more lasting changes in routines
associated with indoor use. Other social dynamics and interactions were more
significant in prompting a permanent shift in ways of doing things. For example, one
family explained that they provided accommodation and meals for exchange students
over the summer, while another had regularly cared for foster children. In both cases the
change in household composition was cited as an important factor in the decision to
invest in a dishwasher to help ease the extra burden of washing up. In the case of both
minor and major adjustments convenience was a central component in explaining
change.
Another explanatory factor for change is in the evolving dynamic of the household itself.
Changes in household structures can pose direct challenges to ‘normal’ ways of doing
48
things. In the following case a more careful water user tried to change the habits of their
partner:
I’ve changed how my boyfriend does it because he used to leave the tap
running constantly and he still occasionally does and I shout at him and I
make him turn it off. I just don’t see the point; you are not using that water,
so turn it off while you are not using it and then do it that way. That has
changed in the last few months for him because now we are living together;
he can’t get away with it because I tell him off. So I would say it’s made his
water consumption certainly go down because I’ve made him probably
more aware, I think he was just oblivious really to anything like that. And
sometimes he’d rinse bits through and then he’d leave the tap running while
he sort of went and did something else to get another bit to rinse, instead of
maybe having everything ready and thinking of quicker ways or better ways
of doing it. I think that’s also made a difference. [Hhld 13]
Other lifestyle changes had prompted the readjustment of routines, as in the case of the
householder who had recently given up their office job to work from home and reflected
on how this had led to changes in the intensity of some activities or to the deferral of
demand to the home:
Well the only difference it makes to me washing in the morning I would say
is, it’s probably a couple of hours later than it would be if I was going to
work. I don’t shave every day like I would do otherwise, if I was in the
office, so yes there’s that difference. But otherwise I mean, if I’m around
I’m always drinking water; I try and drink at least two litres of water a day.
So obviously that’s more used at home than it would be if I was in the
office. [Hhld 19]
Summary: Routines and the dynamics of demand
Taken on their own the drought and appeals for water saving did not appear to
have penetrated householders lives, especially when it came to redefining more
permanent change in routines or rituals. Small adjustments had been made but in
the context of the material reviewed here, significant adjustments to normal
49
practice were more likely to be defined with relation to changing household
dynamics, through social interactions with friends, neighbours and families and
with reference to the terms of convenience. Many of the practices people talked
about were simply part of everyday life. It was an automatic thing to flush the toilet
(or indeed not to at night) or to do the dishes after each meal. More important than
water saving campaigns or restrictions in influencing such routines (and very often
in prompting the intensification of water use around the home) were the demands
of working lives or special events that generated a need for extra activity; washing
dishes or making ice for parties, getting clothes ready to go on holiday, washing
sheets for friends coming to stay. Small adjustments and experiments were made
in the context of drought and restrictions (giving up washing the car, reusing
paddling pool water on plants not just tipping on the lawn) but these were often
framed by other considerations such as convenience. Other more profound
changes, especially those relating to indoor water use, were brought about through
shifting household dynamics, for example, having exchange students to say,
moving into a new home or caring for foster children, or by observing change in
immediate social networks.
4.6 TECHNICAL AND INFRASTRUCTURAL CAPACITIES
The shaping of everyday household practices through various social conventions and
obligations helps us to identify some of the routes through which practices are
established, routinised, reproduced and uprooted. However, we must also factor in the
role of technologies in the social organisation of everyday life and their impact on
demand. As Strang suggests technologies can promote their own use; once people
have invested in appliances these can offer unlimited access to cleanliness with very
little effort (Strang 2004: p200). For example, hosing down the car is easier and more
effective than lugging buckets of water, while labour saving devices such as the washing
machine or dishwasher allow people to use and dispose of water invisibly and without
much thought. Likewise, though at a different scale, infrastructure networks that connect
households to an endless supply of drinking water (and electricity) also have a role in
creating expectations and defining what becomes ‘normal’ and thereby legitimate
consumption (Sofoulis 2006).
50
Domestic plumbing and appliances have clearly changed radically in the lifetimes of
inhabitants. Older respondents vividly recalled the first time indoor bathrooms were
plumbed in, or the arrival of the washing machine in place of the wash tub and mangle.
Stark contrasts were made with household standards and living arrangements today:
‘my son-in-law, he’s got a house with three bathrooms, well what does he need three
bathrooms for’? Besides acknowledging the broad sweep of changes in household
technologies, standards of living and associated domestic practices, our interviews drew
attention to the variability of specific socio-technical arrangements within households
and how these structured capacities for water saving.
What people actually have in their homes presents a shifting canvas of domestic devices
and water infrastructures that frame incredibly diverse contexts for water saving. While
we might talk of a hosepipe or a shower, the different variations, attachments and
configurations of these devices can significantly influence the capacities of consumers to
undertake activities in certain ways. For example, one respondent who lived in a rented
apartment explained how the landlord had replaced the old hot water tank with a smaller
one, which had hindered their ability to take the deep and hot bath they desired and had
become used to:
If I have a bath I like to have a decent bath. Likewise when we couldn’t –
they changed the tank, the element went or something since we’ve been
here, and they replaced it by a tank half the size – well the fact that it was
half the size you couldn’t even fill a bath with half water, sufficient to get in,
not frying but hot enough to feel as though you are not sat in a tepid thing.
So I mean, I just sit in, not right up to here but you know. [Hhld 07]
In this particular instance, the diminished bathing pleasure produced by the new tank
and the lack of capacity to provide for other household tasks like washing up was
enough to prompt the resident in question to reinstall the original model:
No we went back to the tank we had, the original tank. Otherwise we
wouldn’t have had hot water during the day. So my wife wants to do the
washing up at 6 o’clock tonight, we turn the tap on and we get hot water. If
someone had a bath like this morning, we might not have enough hot water
51
but we have got a booster to add it on but we never use that do we? [Hhld
07]
In other situations the size and capacity of domestic technologies was significant in a
number of respects, as we see in the case of the dishwasher. Firstly, decisions to
actually acquire a dishwasher were explained in terms of family or household size – for
example, couples who had children, or those who fostered or took in exchange students
over the summer, saw the dishwasher as a modern convenience they could no longer do
without. Secondly, the size of the model bought was related to the size of kitchens or
utility rooms and space available, with trade-offs sometimes made between the tumble
drier or the dishwasher (one interviewee claimed to have actually designed their kitchen
around the dishwasher this was considered such a central requirement). Third, the
capacity of the dishwasher was important in defining washing regimes but often in the
context of pre-existing notions of waste i.e. ‘we only run it when it’s full’. Therefore,
several householders reported that they had deliberately gone out to purchase more
cutlery and crockery rather than run the dishwasher more regularly when only half
empty:
A couple of year’s back we bought a dishwasher, which again the green
part of me is like, I’m not so sure about that. But again with having children
and always having visitors here, it’s just a time issue more than anything
else. But we always you know, always make sure it only goes on when it
really is pretty chocker. We make sure we’ve got more dishes and plates
now, so that we can last longer between loads. [Hhld 19]
Yes, but it’s a matter of room rather than not having one, of convenience to
fit it in. Now you can buy slimmer ones and there’s only two of us. We
really do question the need for it because it doesn’t hold that much, we
don’t use that much obviously, or we use far less with regard to crockery
and plates and what have you, because there’s only two of us, we’ve just
carried on. If we buy a slim, small one, then that wouldn’t be too much help
if we were entertaining, when obviously the volume of the washing up
increases. That’s not that often. [Hhld 10]
52
Technologies within homes are not stand alone and are dependent on other
configurations of technologies, materials and human activity. The convenience of
washing machine, for example, was closely linked to the availability of another
technology – the tumble dryer:
Most people don’t have the luxury these days of spending hours and hours
at home just being able to do the housework and wash and dry and
iron…well now you know that it doesn’t matter you can wash clothes
whenever you like because you know you can get them dry in an instant by
sticking them in another machine. [Hhld 05]
The example of showering demonstrates the relationship between everyday practices,
the particular configuration of household technologies, the water distribution
infrastructure at the property and neighbourhood level, and plumbing expertise (cf. Hand
et al 2003). In homes where water pressure was generally poor, showers were often not
used at all even where installed. While some householders had made adaptations to
household devices to try and overcome problems with water pressure, for example:
The pressure is not that brilliant but I did raise the water tank in the loft to
increase the pressure about the bungalow to get a better shower, rather
than having a power one. [Hhld 10]
Yet the ability to reconfigure showering arrangements was clearly dependent on the
specific social and economic situation of different households. In the instance above, the
householder owned the property and was prepared to invest time and effort in making
modifications. In another situation, a young couple explained how they had recently
moved into an apartment where living without a shower had become an accepted fact of
life:
The water pressure is too bad, you can’t get a shower to work unless you
get a power shower, which we don’t really want to get because that seems
a bit wasteful to be honest… We’ve looked into it but it would have to be a
very expensive process to be quite honest and we don’t own the property.
And also it’s more hot water and it’s the cost of it. Whereas if it’s a shower
53
into the bath, it’s a lot cheaper in all aspects and uses up less water as well.
So I’m not really interested in the hassle. [Hhld 13]
In this particular context, issues of cost, the difficulty of negotiating with landlords, and
the fact that this was seen only as a temporary home, underpinned the decision not to
install a power shower. What was also interesting in the case of this particular
household was the extent to which moving into a home with certain water-limiting
devices already installed appeared to have influenced the way practices were
performed. One of the tenants explained that they had adjusted their daily practice of
having a shower and sometimes a bath in their previous home and now often had to
make do with a quick wash – this was attributed not only to the unavailability of a shower
but also to the small water tank which only allowed for a shallow bath. The same
householder reflected on whether they would carry such changes into their next home
and on whether equipping homes with such devices as part of a wider strategy for water
efficiency would be disruptive to households:
It has definitely and I think it will make a change in the next place I live, it
would make me think a bit more, it’s made more of a lasting change than
anything else, because it just shows you that you don’t really need to use
as much as you do. And once you’ve learned to survive without using as
much water, I don’t think I would necessarily go back as quickly to using a
lot more… [Hhld 13]
Householders argued about the importance of ‘embedding efficiency’ through installing
water saving devices in buildings at the time of construction, yet in terms of their own
renovation projects such considerations were often only peripheral to other concerns.
For example, several interviewees were involved in bathroom renovation projects that
would significantly increase the number of water using devices in the home:
No but as you see, we are in the process of doing it, so at the moment
we’ve just got one bathroom currently and one toilet is really not enough for
all of us and it’s a very small bathroom and it hasn’t got a full sized bath
either. So when we finish our extension we are going to have three toilets
and a bathroom and a shower room. So we are putting in quite a lot of
54
additional….Yes I think it’s going to be hugely better. I mean the bathroom
isn’t too bad in terms of bath usage; it’s the toilet that really is a problem.
With five of you, one isn’t enough. I’m sure two would be fine but we are
just putting in the three while we are doing it more because of the location
of them really, to have a downstairs one is quite handy if the children are in
the garden, that sort of thing. [Hhld 14]
We’ve got a bathroom en-suite half completed but obviously it will have a
loo in there. The general bathroom, a single loo upstairs and a downstairs
loo in the house….Yes, we’ve put in four toilets as opposed to the two that
were here and then an additional shower room, the en-suite hasn’t got a
bath in it. [Hhld 16]
It was clear from discussions with households that making these substantive changes to
bathroom technologies and domestic plumbing systems were evaluated primarily on the
basis of convenience. As in the following quote, householders did not necessarily see
such developments as inefficient in terms of water usage; this was an issue of saving
time not water:
Well people don’t have to keep going upstairs for a start and it’s just nice to
have a downstairs one. So it was just handy to have a downstairs one, for
guests and just for general handiness of having another one…But is that
necessarily a bad thing? I mean the fact that I’ve got another toilet down
here doesn’t make me use it any more than what I would if I only had the
one does it? You don’t think I’ve got 2 toilets I’ll go and have a wee in it.
You know, you don’t do you? You go to a toilet, as to where it is, it’s
irrespective, same if you’ve got an en suite it’s only convenience of timing, if
somebody’s in the bathroom you can shower, but if you hadn’t got it you
would still go and use that water because you’d use it in that one wouldn’t
you? I think it’s just a convenience thing...I think en-suites and extra loos
are convenience more than usage. In my view they would be anyway. You
know, if you had 6 toilets you would only use the same amount wouldn’t
you? You don’t sort of say I’ll have a wee down here and then I’ll go and
have a wee in that one type of thing. [Hhld 03]
55
Householders described how they had made efforts to modify existing domestic devices,
including the installation of water efficiency measures - the most common being some
sort of cistern device. Yet as the accounts of toilet flushing we highlighted earlier (and as
other studies have shown) simple cistern displacement devices are notoriously
unpredictable as water saving devices. In the cases we highlighted, for example, critical
in defining the water saving potential of toilet flushing was the interaction between
technology, water pressure, flushing habits, convention and specific needs.
The connection between the dynamics of householders’ practices and wider
infrastructure networks and systems of service provision is illustrated through another
example. In some areas, householders reported how new recycling schemes for
domestic waste were changing habits of rinsing with potentially significant implications
for water use.
Up until the 21 September we were still using black sacks, so we were just
throwing all the rubbish in and throw it out. Suffolk Council have just
introduced the bin system which they’ve only delivered this week so we’re
going to have to get into the habit of rinsing things out before we put them
in the recycling bin. [Hhld 05]
Such situations demonstrate how understanding the dynamics of household practices
requires attention to wider ‘injunctions’ made by public authorities, service providers,
housing developers – not only with responsibility for water provision but also with
jurisdiction for sustainable local planning, building efficiency or waste management.
Summary: Technologies, infrastructures and capacities for change
Households are not isolated units, nor are devices stand-alone. Simple daily processes
like turning on the tap or flushing the toilet connects households to infrastructure
networks (Otnes 1988) and to wider systems of provision (e.g. bathroom manufacturing,
home design, retailing, etc.). Such connectivities play a central role in creating demand
– they contribute to establishing what is ‘normal’ and what is to be expected (Van Vliet et
al 2005). What people actually have in their homes presents a shifting canvas of
domestic devices and water infrastructures that frame incredibly diverse contexts for
56
water saving. Technologies within homes are not stand alone and nor are households
isolated units – they are dependent on other configurations of technologies, materials
and human activity. Acquisition of new water technologies is shaped by factors such as
household size, the size of the bathroom, kitchen or utility room, existing water pressure
as well as existing assumptions of waste. The variability of household technologies and
‘standard’ fittings means that generic water saving fixes are unlikely to apply in all
situations and that these must be adapted to meet the specific needs and expectations
of different householders.For some householders with the requisite expertise or the
motivation reconfiguring arrangements may be relatively easier and more worthwhile
than for others. Understandings of how technologies or new configurations of en-suite
bathrooms can promote more water usage may be peripheral to issues of convenience.
The connection between households and wider systems of service provision is also
significant when thinking through adaptation possibilities. Householders themselves
identified the need for more strategic approaches to building in efficiency, for example,
when new homes were built recognizing that the challenge of demand adaptation was
more than a matter of relying on the individual to uptake more efficient technologies.
Integrated thinking outside the boundaries of water efficiency planning is clearly required
in a context where new supposedly ‘sustainable’ service regimes, like that for waste
recycling, have potentially detrimental effects on water use.
4.7 CONCLUSION
Householders’ perceptions of drought and interpretations of the need to adapt were
formulated out of complex historical and social associations with water and the
intermediating influence of companies, the media, and regulation. When households
talked more specifically about their water use, however, we found that many ‘normal’
practices that lead to water consumption were “embedded in the flow of everyday life”
(Shove 2003: p162), and very much part of an unconscious realm of routine (Wilk 2002):
• Different practices have different values for different householders; some practices
were more deeply ingrained in the daily routines of householders, while others
appeared to be more easily renegotiated. Everyday practices of laundering, toilet
flushing and dishwashing appear to be strongly framed by social conventions and
rules about what is considered right and proper in terms of hygiene or cleanliness.
57
• Cleaning practices were caught up in wider questions about what was wasteful that
went beyond immediate concerns about the over-use of water. In this context, the
challenge of tackling escalating standards of cleanliness that drive up water demand
lies in developing new social barometers of what is normal or proper, understanding
the processes through which pre-existing sustainable conventions take root, and
exploring the role of household technologies in redefining standards of sanitation and
hygiene.
• Taken on their own the drought and appeals for water saving did not appear to have
penetrated householders lives especially when it came to redefining more permanent
change in routines or rituals. Significant adjustments to normal practice were more
likely to be defined with relation to changing household dynamics, through social
interactions with friends, neighbours and families and with reference to the terms of
convenience.
• Everyday practices were shaped by a diverse and shifting canvas of domestic
technologies and by wider service regimes and configurations of water
infrastructures creating incredibly diverse contexts for water saving.
• Crucially it is the interaction between the different factors shaping everyday practices
that lead to the creation of demand within a specific context. What counts as optional
or necessary usage is determined by a configuration of the different meanings of
practices, the pressures of everyday routine and obligation, social conventions, and
specific household fittings or technologies.
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CHAPTER 5 - OUTDOOR LIVING AND PEAK DEMAND
5.1 INTRODUCTION
Following the analysis of everyday ‘indoor’ practices, in chapter 5 we focus here on
outdoor living and the challenge of managing peak demand. The social and
environmental significance of gardening and uncertain implications of changing outdoor
living practices make this an important domain in which to focus demand management
efforts. The meaning and dynamics of different outdoor practices (e.g. sprinkling the
lawn, watering plants, washing the car, pressure washing furniture, filling paddling pools,
etc.) have yet to receive the analytical attention they deserve. The changing value of the
lawn at times of water scarcity and the need for more drought resistant forms of
horticulture have been widely debated, but there are other questions to be asked. For
example, do householders consider all outdoor uses as ‘discretionary’, how flexible is
the need for different outdoor activities over time and for different consumers, and what
helps to explain the willingness to give up some practices while maintaining others?
To address such questions we turn to examine meanings and structures of outdoor life
for our household sample. We begin with a brief reflection on the challenge of
understanding the conjunction of different practices and peak demand, before focusing
on outdoor use specifically. We then consider how the introduction of the hosepipe ban
in 2006 challenged normal patterns and practices of outdoor living. This is followed by
an exploration of the different orientations to garden life that we found to exist within our
sample of householders and the types of activities and technologies these orientations
supported. The implications of different gardening orientations in shaping different
watering obligations and forms of adaptation are subsequently discussed.
5.2. CONJUNCTIONS OF PRACTICES UNDERPINNING PEAK DEMAND
Monitoring and managing the dynamics of demand and the spatial and temporal
conjunction of different activities or weather conditions is a formidable task. For example,
managers described the difficulties of modelling peak demand with relation to the
transience of demand, as peoples’ holiday patterns shifted, or garden watering regimes
were modified in relation to changing patterns of weather, work or leisure. This
59
conjunction of climate and demand in specific localities and at certain times in part
influenced managers’ designation of an area as being in drought. Planning to meet
these exceptional peaks also defines the technological ceilings and capacities of water
networks and underlies arguments about the need for network expansion.
Understanding what combination of practices (and underlying values, conventions,
routines and household technologies) constitutes hot weather peak demand is therefore
vital to sustainable and resilient water planning.
In relation to prolonged hot spells, managers predicted the intensification of various
domestic activities and had a number of ideas about what triggered such behaviours:
Once you get 27 degrees centigrade that seems to be a trigger point when
demand takes off, it becomes uncomfortable…people go home and have
an extra shower in the evening. It’s hot enough to get the paddling pool out
and fill it up and plants are wilting in the garden [WRM 03]
Well, when temperatures get to a certain level, there seems to be another
increase, like people showering twice a day, that type of thing. It tends to
have an impact when it’s up around the 30-degree mark. But it does build
as the days go on, because what normally happens is the days gradually
get warmer through the dry period and demand goes up in line with that.
Your garden gets dry so you chuck more water on it. But then you also
reach this height, it’s around about 28, 30 degrees where you seem to get
an extra kick up with probably personal washing, I don’t know, it’s just a
theory that we’ve had for a while. But then you get the thunderstorm and it
just drops off overnight. [WRM 06]
Water managers have identified the link between hot weather and showering as one
challenge in managing peak demand during drought. Certainly, a number of
householders reported that they often had to have a shower more frequently when it
was hot and some reported taking multiple showers (as many as three or four a day in
one instance). These showering experiences were often described as a ‘quick way to
cool down’ implying that frequency and duration were relevant considerations when
assessing the need to undertake certain activities during drought (in contrast for
60
example to longer tasks like watering the lawn which people seemed more likely to
debate the need for). The coincidence of hot weather and showering was also
associated with different types of activities, for example people expressed the need for a
shower after doing ‘messy’ or ‘mucky’ jobs in the garden, or after spending the day at
the beach. For those householders who claimed to be generally content with a quick
wash down in the evening, other trigger points for extra showering included coming
home from work on crowded, hot and sticky trains.
As with showering hot weather patterns appeared to influence the frequency of
laundering practices, especially the need to change clothes or bedding more regularly,
but again this related to patterns of working practices and technologies and
opportunities available to different householders: for example whether they were at
home during the day and whether it was possible to hang the washing out to dry. As well
as general demand for clothing people reported hot summer days at home as the time
they caught up with washing of other items – including curtains, sheets, duvets and
dressing gowns, rugs, etc. However, the decision to change laundering routines might
depend on the duration of hot spells as well as on temperature alone, as a number of
interviewees highlighted when commenting on how routines had changed in response to
a particularly prolonged hot spell in July 2006. For example one respondent noted that ‘it
would have to be hot for probably over a week for it to really make a significant
difference because for a couple of days I wouldn’t really consider washing the bedding
out of sync’. These changing routines often related to physical experiences of discomfort
and conventions of cleanliness, in terms of washing hot and sweaty sheets, but were
sometimes part of seasonal routines of washing, i.e. cleaning and airing in spring and
summer, or taking advantage of the good weather to catch up with outdoor tasks.
Therefore, in thinking about the trigger points for change in practices during hot weather
we need to think beyond assumptions of individual behaviour to understand the
intersection between conventions of cleanliness and comfort, values attributed to
particular weather patterns, alternative technologies available, daily working routines
and seasonal habits. As depicted in Figure 5.1, these elements combine to shape the
temporality of hot weather practices and are underpinning of peak demand.
61
Figure 5.1: Household dynamics and hot weather demand
Thinking about peak demand in terms of complex conjunctions of different activities that
coincide in time and space is important to bear in mind, for it may be that drought
management needs to be more encompassing to deal with this array of activities in
future. However, as currently formulated strategies for managing peak demand generally
focus on the dynamics of outdoor rather than indoor living.
From the perspective of water regulators and supply managers gardening activities are
extremely problematic in relation to peak demand and are an area of considerable
uncertainty. Much activity related to peak summer demand takes place outdoors
(Herrington 1996). The Environment Agency estimates that on hot summer evenings
demand associated with garden watering can be as much as 50% of overall supply
compared to only 6% on average.
Outdoor water use has historically been the focus of domestic drought management on
the basis that this is defined as discretionary rather than essential use and hence likely
to cause only minimal inconvenience for householders. In addition, unlike indoor water
Constellations of hot weather
practices
Routines & habits: e.g. spring cleaning, commuting, holidays
Conventions e.g. eradicate smell, sweat, discomfort, etc.
Domestic technologies e.g. clothes lines, tumble driers, air-con, pools etc.
Weather patterns e.g. prolonged hot days, good drying days, etc.
62
use, water companies do not have a statutory duty to supply water for outdoor use. The
decision by a number of water companies to impose hosepipe bans in 2006 maintains
this focus on outdoor rather than indoor consumption. Currently this is the only area
where there is a direct intervention in the lives of households requiring some
renegotiation of dependencies on water. Hosepipes have essentially come to act as a
symbol of excessive consumption, although historically indoor technologies such as the
bath have also been associated with wasteful consumption habits and subject to
restriction during drought (Trentmann and Taylor 2006).
Hosepipe bans have formed a central component of drought management for over 60
years in the UK. The legislation governing such restrictions was first drafted in 1945 to
restrict the use of a hosepipe (or similar apparatus) for washing of cars or watering of
private gardens and is currently under review by Defra (O’Connor 2007 provides a
detailed review of hosepipe legislation). While the meaning of such restrictions may
appear self-evident, the controversy that played out around the definition of hosepipe
ban in the 2006 drought illustrated how ‘essential’ or ‘non-essential’ consumption are
both highly negotiable terms especially in the context of contemporary lifestyles and
technologies. Reports in the media questioned why the use of a hosepipe to wash a
private motor car or water a domestic garden were included in the ban, while other
arrangements, such as filling a swimming pool or hot tub, or using pressure washers to
clean patios or driveways had escaped restrictions (Adam 2006, Barkham 2006). In the
context of such controversies there is a need to consider how formal definitions of non-
essential use, as encompassed in hosepipe bans, related to householders own
understandings of what is essential with regard to outdoor living and of the need to cut
back, adapt or cope. For while water managers may see the garden as a scene of
unnecessary and profligate use, others have argued that ‘water is as meaningful and just
as essential – both literally and metaphorically – to the garden as it is to the human
body’ (Strang 2004: p206).
5.3 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF GARDENING FOR UK HOUSEHOLDERS
Gardens evidently hold huge symbolic, social, economic and political significance for
homeowners, with Britain having often been described as a nation of gardeners. Studies
of the British garden have represented it as a place for both individual and familial self-
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expression (Strang 2004), and for the formation of cultural identity (Bisgrove and Hadley
2002). Others have drawn a distinction between natural and more utilitarian and
consumerist orderings of gardens (Bhatti and Church 2001) reminding us that gardens
have multidimensional meanings and are not just a place to grow things. Gardening is
currently one of the leading hobbies in Britain, with an estimated 27 million gardeners
(approximately 41% of the population) participating in some way (Bisgrove and Hadley
2002: p1). Gardeners also sustain a multi-million pound horticultural retail industry, with
estimates that British people spent in the region of 3 billion pounds on their gardens in
1998, compared to 2.3 billion pounds only two years earlier (Hitchings 2003).
Changing practices of outdoor living are at the forefront of debates about sustainable
consumption. Bhatti and Church, for example, identify gardens as ‘a key locale within
which nature and wider environmental issues are debated and understood’ (Bhatti and
Church 2001: p365). The relationship between different gardening styles and the
production of environmental risk has been highlighted in recent public debates, for
example, the loss of horticultural knowledge in contributing to a decline in biodiversity
(Royal Horticultural Society 2005). In September 2006, Environment Minister Ian
Pearson went so far as to suggest that in the battle against climate change gardeners
will be at the ‘frontline’ (Ryan 2006). Specifically, the impact of gardening activities on
peak water demand in hot, dry summers as a result of climate change is expected to be
significant (Bisgrove and Hadley 2002).
Gardening practices and technologies are also co-evolving in significant new ways.
Sales of garden watering equipment have reportedly risen dramatically in recent years; a
report published in 2002 for the UK Climate Impacts Programme estimated an increase
from £21 million to £61 million over a four year period (Bisgrove and Hadley 2002).
Domestic use in the south east for lawn sprinkling is estimated to have increased from
0.1 litres per capita per day in 1976 to 4.3 litres per capita per day in 2001 (Bisgrove and
Hadley 2002). Yet the relationship between gardening practices, technologies and water
consumption is still obscure. While much activity related to problematic peak summer
demand may take place outdoors we still know little about which specific activities are
behind such figures, or why these activities have come to be socially relevant in the lives
of different households. For example, in relation to increased ownership and use of lawn
sprinklers, ‘the extent to which this reflects climate change impacts, as distinct from a
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general increase in standards of living (ability to afford sprinklers and time to use them)
and an appreciation of gardens, is uncertain’ (Bisgrove and Hadley 2002: p81). To
understand such issues we consider how the hosepipe ban intervened in the everyday
lives of our households.
5.4 DROUGHT, HOSEPIPE BANS AND DISRUPTION TO OUTDOOR LIFE
Initial discussions suggested that the hosepipe ban had had relatively limited impact on
the life of our interviewees, and certainly was not considered as disruptive as would
have been the case if restrictions had been placed on indoor use. In the context of
thinking about the impact of the hosepipe ban on daily activities many householders
concurred that the use of the hose to water the garden or wash the car was not really an
absolute need and that adopting alternative methods (e.g. watering cans or buckets)
was only a minor inconvenience. Whether the ban had caused people to curb their
actual usage of water was more difficult to gauge. Some people recorded less frequent
or intensive garden watering, but in other cases, as the following extract illustrates, the
only thing that appeared to have changed was the technique of watering:
It’s not that much [of a difference], it doesn’t actually take that much longer
because while I’m using one can – I’ve got two watering cans – so while I’m
going out watering with one, I’m filling up another one. So I don’t have to
stand there and let it fill up, so it doesn’t take that long really. I think it took
me about fifteen minutes the other night, which is probably what I’d stand
there with a hosepipe anyway, probably about the same… No, I would say
I’m using about the same [amount of water] because I’m spending about
the same amount of time watering and I’m not losing any, I’ve got it turned
on so it’s just filling one while I do another. So I suppose I’m using about
the same amount. [Hhld 18]
Householders’ assessments of adherence to restrictions and the disruption caused were
guided with reference to the actions and inactions of neighbours, family and friends.
Observations made by respondents highlighted variations in what different people were
prepared to give up, how this related to the different values being attached to outdoor
water use (e.g. in relation to washing cars, filling pools, nurturing plants, growing
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vegetables) and how such values were framed with reference to what other people were
doing. For example, people reported giving up planting pots, flower beds or vegetables
rather than waste money, effort or water in the struggle to keep things alive, or giving up
the paddling pool in response to seeing neighbours and friends make attempts to modify
practices.
A common perception was that the majority of people were adhering to the ban,
although some interviewees reflected on how effective hosepipe bans might be as a
form of restriction without more rigorous methods for monitoring or policing bans, for
example:
You don’t see anybody using their hosepipe during the day, so people are
taking it on board…but, how do people know what you are doing in your
own home? Loads of people I speak to in work just go out and hosepipe in
the night, when it’s dark. [Hhld 18]
Questions of transparency also arose when householders were asked to evaluate how
effective they believed hosepipe bans to be, highlighting the need for some form of
feedback relevant to their specific impact:
I don’t know, I don’t really know how much, you see they don’t publish any
figures and say, if I hadn’t a hosepipe ban we’d use so much less water,
they don’t tell you. It might just be sort of a tiny amount compared to what
they are losing. They don’t make it clear. It would be better if they said, by
having a hosepipe ban compared to last year you’ve saved X amount of
water, which helped us, but they don’t tell you that. [Hhld 18]
Declarations of general support for a ban were often subject to further qualification
relating to issues as diverse as perceptions of water shortage, the duration of the ban,
experiences overseas, as well as clarity and fairness of restrictions with relation to
different commercial and domestic usages and users.
The visibility of resource scarcity was one factor that contributed to the justification for a
hosepipe ban, as the following responses show:
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It wouldn’t bother me at all if it was justified and you know, and you looked
at a reservoir and you can see how low they are you know, a hosepipe ban,
fine. I’d be quite happy with it. [Hhld 06]
Well if it has got to come, it has got to come hasn’t it? I mean if there is a
drought we see pictures, don’t we, of these reservoirs and we see rivers
and things, how far down from the banks the water is, I mean we must, we
must. [Hhld 08]
Hosepipe bans were generally perceived as a short term measure, a valid and
necessary response at least until local resource levels returned to ‘normal’. However, the
imposition of prolonged restrictions and whether such measures would continue to
secure support from households was difficult to judge. Support for the hosepipe ban was
framed in other cases by wider experiences, for example, where people had visited hot
and dry countries where water scarcity was not perceived as a problem. In drawing
comparisons with overseas experiences where water appeared to be less restricted,
householders implied that restrictions were a product of an inflexible supply system
which produced only one type of water. For example, some interviewees questioned why
desalination was not considered an option for the UK, or whether recycled water might
meet some outdoor watering needs.
There’s an element of it [restrictions] that doesn’t make a great deal of
logic… when you go to a hot country, and I was thinking about it when I
went to Turkey recently, and they’ve got – generally it doesn’t rain during
the summer – but they don’t have any problems with the water, but you
can’t really drink the water because it’s all been reused. One thing I do
think we could do, and if you took the swimming pool in somebody’s garden
as an example, is the swimming pool is probably topped up with sort of
drinking class water, when it doesn’t need to be. And it just made me think
about the amount of water that we use that’s drinking quality that doesn’t
need to be. And we are obviously in a situation where you’ve only
generally got one water supply coming in, but if there’s a way that you can
actually have drinking quality water and non-drinking quality water, I think
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the problem would go away, because you could use all kinds of water. I
imagine the restrictions are actually on storing the water, cleaning the water
and I presume water is recycled in some way, but I imagine it’s more the
capacity. Because we are obviously surrounded by water and the ability, if
you could turn the seawater into something that was, not drinking quality
water, but could be used. Now for example, if I had a pool and I wanted to
use the pool, then it may be that I’ve got to buy the water off somebody who
delivers it in a truck that comes from clean water from the sea. [Hhld 15]
As we have already noted media reports published in 2006 drew attention to the
contradictions embodied within hosepipe restriction definitions. Householders
themselves also questioned why certain uses of the hosepipe were allowed while others
were banned:
What struck me as odd was that you could use a hosepipe to top up your
swimming pool, but you couldn’t use the hosepipe to water the garden. I’m
not quite sure what that rule was all about…it just struck me as completely
barmy that within the law I could go out there every single day and fill up
the paddling pool and use god knows how many gallons, but if we had any
roses I wouldn’t be able to water them (Hhld 19).
Another respondent expressed their uncertainty over what was covered under the
restrictions in posing the following questions to a member of the research team:
Can you just put a couple of things straight, the power wash thing, are you
allowed to use that?...I mean are you quite all right to top your fishpond
up?...Some people say you can use it or you can use a short hose, but
what’s a short hose? [Hhld 12]
While such apparent inconsistencies within hosepipe legislation appeared irrational for
many consumers, water managers justified this on the basis that some excluded uses,
such as swimming pools, are required to be metered and there is therefore a financial
incentive already in place to curb usage. However, despite such qualifications, water
managers accepted the argument that garden watering legislation was no longer an
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appropriately sophisticated demand management measure, especially in the context of
contemporary lifestyles and technologies.
With relation to outdoor living the intervention of the hosepipe ban in 2006 revealed
subtle differences in what modern consumers valued water for and exposed the blurred
distinctions between different ‘sectors’ of life that restrictions as currently formulated
overlook. Car washing practices were a good example here. For many consumers
washing the car was a low priority, some claimed they rarely if every washed it, others
that they waited until it rained and went out with a sponge and bucket. Car washing was
much more frequent and less negotiable for those who depended on the car for work, for
ferrying business clients around, or for reasons of safety:
Oh, I would have cleaned the cars more when I was at work than what I do
now, even though I have more time to do it now. I would have had a
different need to clean the car, primarily for safety reasons, I was on the
motorway an awful lot, so I needed to be able to see. [Hhld 10]
We heard from managers and regulators how customers had questioned whether it was
possible to wash taxis or water allotments under the restrictions. Similar questions were
posed by some households where people ran a business from home or grew vegetables
for sale locally. The uncertainties generated by the ban in essence exposed difficulties
people have in distinguishing private domestic use from work obligations and
commercial activities.
While householders faced restrictions on car washing and the watering of private
gardens many questioned whether it was fair that other residential, commercial or public
outdoor watering practices were allowed to continue as normal. In relation to domestic
outdoor practices, the continued use of a private swimming pool during drought was
challenged on a number of counts:
I’ve got two or three friends who have got them [swimming pools]. I
suppose it depends how serious, if it got any more serious than this year
then they shouldn’t have them. I don’t know if we are going to be
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threatened with standpipe, if they do that nowadays, then people shouldn’t
really have a swimming pool in the garden, no. [Hhld 17]
I mean to me, that’s not an essential part of living. That is a pure and utter
pleasure at home. If the council still have their swimming pool then fine, if
people want to go for a swim, then go for a swim. If clubs, leisure clubs,
have swimming pools let them have theirs, because it’s a business. But
you know taking gallons and gallons of water for one family to have a
private deal I think is extreme. [Hhld 10]
As these examples show, questions about the legitimacy of private water consumption
are influenced by perceptions of the severity of the drought and are connected to
debates about the responsibility of public authorities to provide services in the
community (e.g. municipal pools). Meanwhile the controversy surrounding the filling of
private swimming pools or paddling pools during the hosepipe ban led another
respondent to articulate the need for a more comprehensive definition of discretionary or
non-essential use:
Well I think definitely a complete hosepipe ban, whatever the need is you
know, whether it’s for cleaning your car or filling your swimming pool, it
should be a complete no, no… if it was a complete hosepipe ban and you
couldn’t do paddling pools, we’d just have to find some other way of
amusing them. [Hhld 19]
Hosepipe bans also prompted debate about the use of restrictions in the wider outdoor
environment, beyond the realm of private gardens (e.g. parks, golf courses, sports
grounds, etc.). While the aesthetic value of public fountains or flower beds on
roundabouts was appreciated by householders, the need for maintaining these during
times of water scarcity and when local people were facing restrictions on watering their
own gardens was seen as sending out the wrong message, for example:
Hosepipe bans covers the garden, but I don’t think it makes people think
about other areas. Whereas other water saving measures, I think, should
be made more for public [places]. Sorts of things like the big fountain in
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[the] Town Centre, though it could be seen as pretty it also wastes a lot of
water, although it does filter it round but it splashes out a lot and a lot goes
round the edge and when there’s a shortage of water does that need to be
happening?...I don’t think necessarily the council should be watering the
roundabouts, which I sometimes still see on, maybe not since the ban but
the second it’s lifted, they are out watering. Should they be setting the
example of not using as much water sort of thing? They could make the
roundabouts have something else if they can’t water, or have flowers that
survive in the dry better, but I think things like that sort of give people the
image of it’s OK to water your garden for an hour a night, it doesn’t matter.
[Hhld 13]
Using water to maintain aesthetic features like public fountains or roundabouts was
regarded as unfair during a hosepipe ban, yet householders expressed support for users
such as farmers and the need to irrigate crops on the grounds of this being important for
reasons of supporting local economies and for food subsistence. The drought had
clearly placed meanings of legitimate practice under scrutiny.
5.5 SOCIAL ORIENTATIONS TO OUTDOOR LIFE
Householders may have talked at one level about a limited disruption to their day to day
lives prompted by the 2006 drought and hosepipe restrictions, but we found significant
diversity in the meanings of ‘normal’ outdoor practices that in turn shaped watering
obligations. Although we had no way of knowing what to expect in terms of garden size,
layout or design, the diversity in gardens included in our small sample was striking; from
half acre gardens supporting every activity imaginable to tiny plots with only a few pot
plants. There were dry and barren gardens abandoned to the elements or those that
were scrupulously maintained with neatly manicured lawns and well tended flower beds.
Householders described how the specific micro-climatic conditions of gardens (wind, sun
and soils) influenced the need for watering, and how such conditions interfaced with the
design of homes or gardens, or certain features. For example: a pond positioned in a
windy place had a high evaporation rate and needed regular topping up; a conservatory
that intensified the sun’s glare on the grass and flowers; or trees with preservation
orders that ‘drank the garden dry’ however much water was applied.
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Along with the diversity of garden size, content, and micro-climate that shaped the need
for watering, what people did in their gardens varied dramatically ranging from cultivating
plants, washing boats or cars, to hosting parties and entertaining children. By way of
illustration Table 5.2 summarises four different orientations to garden life that each
embodied a particular notion of what the garden was for, supported a particular
configuration of technologies and practices and created particular water demands.
Table 5.2: Orientations to Garden Life
Garden type Social role & organisation
Layout/material organisation Watering obligation
Playground
Given over to children for play, not a place to grow roses, etc.
Usually lawn for games, furniture and patio for adults
Summer paddling pools and other watery fun
Productive
Keen gardeners, hive of activity, hobbies, cultivation, etc.
Well established, with zones for plants, lawn, vegetables, etc.
Intensive watering, but expertise to rig up water butts, etc.
Convenient
Garden used only occasionally, low maintenance, a burden
Simple layout, plants and hardy shrubs that fend for themselves
Minimal effort, hosepipe ban excuse not to bother
Transitional
Work in progress, no defined roles as yet, garden in transition
Experimenting with plants, few established areas
Test site for different technologies and watering routines
Playground orientations
Playground orientations were underpinned by the notion of the garden as a space for
entertaining children and relaxing with guests. These typically supported grassy areas
for children’s activities and patio or decking space for sitting and socializing with friends
and family in the summer but were not normally a place to cultivate extensive borders as
one interviewee, the father of two young children, explained:
Yeah, it’s mostly lawn, the odd shrubs around the outside really, but none
of us have time for any gardening. That’s the problem we don’t have time
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for gardening and with two kids running around kicking a ball, it’s not worth
trying to grow any nice roses or anything. You know they are going to get
kicked down or something. [Hhld 19]
Productive orientations
Other gardens were also a veritable hive of activity but supporting a more productive
mode of outdoor living. Such orientations were common to avid gardeners with a keen
interest in cultivating plants and an extensive knowledge of micro-climate and of what
would grow given certain conditions. Productive outdoor living often encompassed
subsistence or entrepreneurial opportunities such as growing vegetables or propagating
plants, hobbies and activities that people were reluctant to give up, as in the case of the
following fuchsia growing enthusiast:
Well down the garden I’ve got a big propagator and I grow loads of
fuchsias. And to show what the scale they are, I could fit 800 fuchsias in
my propagator. It started off as an interest really and it keeps my mind of
my other problems, like you know, pains and all that you know, so it’s
something that I quite like doing when I feel like it, so I really, really wouldn’t
want to stop doing that. I mean if everybody stopped growing things,
nowhere is going to look very colourful is it? [Hhld 12]
Convenient orientations
Contrasting with these sites of mini-industry we found gardening lives framed by the
need for convenience, often with a simple layout and few hardy shrubs and trees. These
were generally the domain of low maintenance gardeners, and were defined primarily by
wider commitments of work or childcare, with householders finding gardens not a
pleasure but a burden:
But really the idea was to have quite a low maintenance garden so the
things that I’ve changed have been things that need little looking after and
can be, well just not need looking after. I like a nice garden but I haven’t
got the time or the skill to make it beautiful. So I kind of let nature take its
course. [Hhld 20]
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Transitional orientations
Finally, we found households that had yet to develop a clear orientation towards
gardening life, with outdoor space often a site of ongoing development or a test site for
different types of gardening activities and technologies:
I’ve been trying to cultivate a new area out the front and you’ve put new
plants in but obviously they weren’t established, so that’s been a bit of a
nuisance because I’ve lost a couple…Because I’m a novice gardener I
haven’t spent a fortune. It’s been very trial and error, what’s been on offer in
the garden centre. So I haven’t lost much money on it but I suppose if it had
been a wetter summer they might have established better. [Hhld 16]
In these ‘transitional’ situations the advice of experts, media, friends and neighbours
appeared critical to defining future gardening styles or orientations.
Co-evolving gardening lives
While useful in highlighting the diversity of gardening practices these orientations were
by no means fixed. People simultaneously ascribed multiple meanings to their gardens
and different orientations to outdoor living were part of a distinctive and co-evolving life
story that shifted through various upheavals and dynamics of family lives. For example,
one resident talked of the initial nurturing of the half acre plot when the house was built,
with greenhouses and flower beds, to its decline and abandonment after the death of her
husband:
Yes it’s about a third of an acre, we chose the plot and my husband wanted
a big garden, he was the gardener...He grew flowers, vegetables, you
know, had a greenhouse and loved the garden, he was a gardener and
that’s why he picked this plot of land because it was a third of an acre…All I
have got now is grass, and hedges and trees and shrubs and they have to
take their chance…So there’s no water ever used in the garden now. [Hhld
08]
Another keen gardener who had recently undergone a serious operation, explained how
his garden had once had a therapeutic role, and was a place to pursue hobbies, but had
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more recently become something of a burden and was being redesigned to avoid the
need for heavy work.
We used to grow loads of vegetables at one time of the day, I’d have a
greenhouse full of cucumbers and the other one I’d have full of tomatoes.
And we used to grow spring onions and all sorts of things…Well for the last
few years because I’ve had operations to my legs and I’ve not been able to
do it, so I said well we’ll do flowers and put stones down….Try to get more
of a low maintenance sort of garden with stones and things like that…make
it more low maintenance. I can’t do a lot of digging. [Hhld 12]
Low maintenance or drought resistant gardening appeared to be redefining
dependencies on lawns or borders for many households yet this was sometimes a
compromise that came at a social, aesthetic and emotional cost:
I don’t necessarily love the plants that I grow now but you have to accept
that, you know it’s easier to go with the things that you know will do well
rather than necessarily plant what you’d love to see and then they’re not
going to survive. [Hhld 04]
5.6 SOCIAL ORIENTATIONS AND WATERING OBLIGATIONS
Different social orientations to outdoor living translated into different watering obligations.
For example, playgrounds as a hive of activity with paddling pools and other watery fun
on hot summer days or the water intensive springtime activities of ‘productive’
propagating and bedding in plants. Transitional orientations appeared to provide more
of a blank canvas with the potential for developing more resilient gardening practices,
such as drought resistant gardens that would require less water. These variations help to
explain the ease of adaptation to hosepipe bans for some groups and the challenges
these present for others.
For those people who saw the garden as a burden anyway the hosepipe ban was often
taken as an excuse not to bother watering, for example the householder who explained
that ‘it’s not actually inspired me to do less, it’s just given me an excuse to do less’, or
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another who explained the dual benefit of the ban ‘it works both ways, I haven’t got to do
it and it saves water’. In such cases the ban worked to modify practices at least partly
through legitimising inactivity. Another householder noted in their diary ‘drought, what
drought, I’m now having to cut the grass again on a regular basis’ implying that the dry
weather may have had positive benefits in the reduced frequency of mowing the lawn.
The relationship between convenient orientations and adaptation in watering practices
related also to established garden layouts as in the case of the respondent who
explained that they always used the watering can for their tubs ‘because the tap is
there’, or where a move to a home with a smaller garden had influenced the
householder’s dependency on different watering technologies:
I may well have used it [hosepipe] in the past just to water, just to save
walking but it’s such a small garden here. I think if it was a bigger garden I
think I would use the hose, that’s probably fair to say. But because [here]
it’s more a matter of, it’s only not far to the tap – it’s right by that plant at the
back on the left – and it’s only eight, ten steps; it’s not worth unreeling the
hosepipe and everything. But no, if it was a larger garden and there wasn’t
a water shortage, then I’d use the hose. If there was a water shortage I
wouldn’t use the hose, that’s probably fair to say. [Hhld 15]
In this case we can begin to see the conjunction of factors (house design, technologies
available, size of garden, orientation) that support either the practice of hosing or the
alternative of using a watering can.
Those people who had significant investments in gardens, and whom we might think of
as having a keen productive orientation in growing vegetables or cultivating plants, were
more likely to make extra efforts to keep the garden going when facing a hosepipe ban.
One householder’s account of changes made to watering regimes in the context of the
hosepipe ban provides a particularly vivid impression of the lengths people were
prepared to go to in keeping gardens alive and thriving:
As you can see I’ve had quite a few flowers this year, while we can’t use
the hosepipe now, I’ve got a little can, I do it with that and I do honestly
think that that saves a hell of a lot of water, by using just that, because it all
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goes directly into the place where you want it to you know…It takes me a
lot, lot longer to water but saying that, as I said before it’s something which
needs to be done that way really because it’s got to the stage where it’s got
to be saved the water…I mean before there was a water ban I would
sprinkle round with a hosepipe …I would say its saved gallons and gallons.
I mean like I say, before the hosepipe ban I’d go round with a hosepipe and
everywhere would be soaked, the path, well that’s not necessary is it, to
soak everything, if you are watering the flowers, it’s not necessary to soak
the path as well. So I mean that is something that I would say, I would be
tempted to do that always like that because you don’t waste so much water
then. [Hhld 12]
In this particular instance the householder in question had recently undergone a serious
operation which made the carrying of watering cans a particular hardship yet the garden
in question was thriving with immaculate green lawn and beautifully tended flower beds.
For another respondent who took particular pride in their garden, watering intensity and
effort was defined by a key event in the gardening year, and by the need to maintain the
aesthetic appeal of the garden:
I have a sort of garden party and I wanted it to look really nice, so I was
doing the borders a bit more then. But now I’ve had my garden party and
that will do, I shan’t worry so much now. Just the pots, I shall keep the pots
going. [Hhld 04]
Adaptations to drought in respect of playground orientations to outdoor living were often
mediated with relation to the specific demands of childcare, leisure and entertaining. For
example, paddling pools fulfilled a very specific set of values and needs (a relatively
cheap way of keeping children cool, safe, amused and occupied) and were seen as
something of a sacrifice:
I see kids playing in the paddling pool for a couple of hours on a hot sunny
day as really a completely different kind of entertainment to say going to a
swimming pool. Well first of all, if we go to a swimming pool, then one of us
parents have to go with them. And especially with our smallest one, she’s
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of the age where she still needs arm bands. So you can’t take your eye off
them for a minute. Whereas with a paddling pool, you know if you are
working in the kitchen or might be working in the garden, you can be getting
on with things while the children are still having a lot of fun. And our
children will play in the paddling pool, you can put them out there and they
will play in it for two or three hours you know. They’ll have a slide sort of
leading into it and all this kind of stuff. Whereas if we go to the local
swimming pool, after about twenty minutes, half an hour, they are ready to
come home. And the paddling pool is of course, virtually free entertainment
for the children. [Hhld 19]
While for this household the hosepipe ban had provided an incentive to cut back on the
number of times the family had used the paddling pool in the summer (in their diary it
was reported that over the summer they had only used the children’s paddling pool three
times – about a quarter of normal use), giving up such experiences entirely was deemed
difficult. In fact, even those households that did not have a paddling pool themselves
saw the value of this in keeping children healthy and cool in adverse weather conditions,
and did not consider it a luxury in the same sense as a private swimming pool. For other
families outdoor pools fulfilled a number of social needs and were part of the culture of
summer entertaining, for example:
We did have a paddling pool up this summer in July, for the teenagers
really. But that was just for a short while, and it was filled up a couple of
times…we had family visiting and it was a good way of entertaining a lot of
younger people. And then it stayed up for a good couple of weeks and it
was the older ones that put chairs around the outside and put all their feet
in and talked about life. [Hhld 20]
Usage of private pools was clearly dependent on household dynamics, as children grew
up these were no longer valued in the same way, but were also related to what forms of
entertainment or leisure facilities were available in the wider community, as one father of
three teenage sons explained:
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Just basically the age of the kids, they are not really interested [in paddling
pools]. If we want to go swimming we will go to the gym across the road,
they’ve got a swimming pool there, which is a five minute walk and they’ve
got a lovely big swimming pool there, saunas and Jacuzzis and all that, so
we use that. [Hhld 21]
5.7 SOCIAL ORIENTATION AND GARDEN TECHNOLOGIES
Different configurations of garden technologies are affiliated to different orientations and
their changing role in the lives of gardeners reveals where opportunities for adaptation in
outdoor living are being constructed. Hosepipes were originally designed to maintain
immaculate green lawns in the homes of the wealthy but have become a ubiquitous
feature of the ordinary British garden. An unexpected consequence of the hosepipe ban
for some gardeners we interviewed was rediscovering the qualities of an older
technology, the watering can, in getting water to where it was needed, avoiding damage
to delicate plants and reducing waste. The contribution of newer devices like pressure
washers in defining garden activities are not yet clear, and while sprinklers are now
unpopular with some households who associated them with waste, people continue to
experiment. One respondent talked of how they hoped to rig up a timed sprinkler
system to automatically water their garden:
I’ve got a sort of sprinkler system set up out the front, I’m doing the back
garden at the moment but I haven’t used that this summer because there’s
this ban…It’s to save me watering it with a can, just time really… I bought
them in America, these little sprinkler things that you get, the one out the
back has got a timer and everything on it; that goes directly into the mains.
There’s pipes under the ground, out the front there’s just two things sticking
up with like spray nozzles, but the one at the back have got pop up nozzles
in the lawn and all that. [Hhld 18]
As this example suggests, configurations of garden technologies are always on the
move as new roles for them are envisaged and invented.
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The example of rainwater collection demonstrates particularly well how different
conjunctions of gardening orientations and technologies might influence future capacities
for adaptation in outdoor living. Forms of rainwater collection are a long standing feature
of British gardens but have recently taken on new momentum with concerns over climate
change and peak demand associated with garden watering (Bisgrove and Hadley 2002).
Most water companies have encouraged the use of such distributed storage techniques
through promotional campaigns offering water butts for free or at a reduced cost. For
consumers such methods provide a ‘virtually free source of water’ and enable direct
control over water supply. In practice the potential of rain water butts to provide an
alternative way of watering the garden has only been partly realised.
Collecting rainwater in the garden was supported by the majority of our householders but
not all had translated this into practice. For those households with more productive
orientations to outdoor life, rainwater butts were a longstanding feature, and many in this
group believed that rainwater was actually better for plants than chemically treated tap
water. Some householders had developed even more sophisticated techniques for grey
water reuse on the garden, for example, diverting used water from the washing machine
and collecting it in storage boxes outside the house. One householder spoke about how
they had been inspired to recycle water by the particularly impressive system rigged up
by one of their neighbours:
That man next door, he’s laid pipes from his bath, they go down across the
garden and all the water does his shrubbery, he’s got pipes going all over
so definitely he saves his water, he’s rigged up for every drop of water…he
grows all sorts of things in his garden, melons all sorts, he’s very
conscientious, it’s brilliant you know, very clever. [Hhld 12]
Yet other keen gardeners, while happy to use rainwater on plants, were not convinced
that recycling water from the bath or sink was such a good idea, drawing attention to the
different risks attached to waters of variable qualities:
If it was safe for plants. I don’t know, people talk about washing up water,
putting it on their plants and I suppose in desperation we would, but I
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suppose I’d think would it kill them, would it hurt them, soapy greasy water,
I don’t know. [Hhld 03]
To be honest I have previously thought about reusing it for watering the
garden but I don’t know whether the soaps and everything would actually
cause more damage than not, but it is something that has occurred to me,
but I don’t know whether that’s the sort of thing that I would use. [Hhld 15]
For those families where entertaining children was considered paramount, decisions to
engage in rainwater collection were also tied to concerns about safety and adaptation
potential was more a question of careful design:
We were talking about this the other day and I think really every house
ought to have one, a water butt. Although I was against them when I had
young children I must admit and I am very reticent for young children
because I’ve heard of kiddies drowning in them and I wouldn’t have one
when I had young children. I had one taken away when I had mine…I do
think people should have one. Every house should have one but I think
they should have a lockable lid. [Hhld 03]
For households where convenience was a significant concern the decision to use certain
technologies (including recycling) was often framed in terms of whether this was likely to
save time or effort:
Because the last few summers we’ve had the hosepipe ban we’ve realised
how difficult it is when you are watering the garden with a watering can. So
at least if you collected some of the water you are not painfully waiting for
the can to fill up from the outside tap the whole time, you can have two or
three watering cans on the go… Again I think if I had a water butt just
outside the back door then I’m far more likely to take any water and tip it in
that rather than you are just faced with a bowl of water and think oh, which
plant should I go and water with that. So I’m not opposed to the idea
[recycling water] but I haven’t really got into the routine of it this year. [Hhld
16]
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In situations where gardening orientations were only being developed or were in
transition the decision to acquire a water butt was often inspired by the gardening
practices of other family members:
We don’t have any water butts or anything and I think that’s something we
might do in time. I think it’s because we feel slightly that we are not
organised here at the moment. We are sort of in the middle of a building
project, so we haven’t done any what I call finishing touches. But Bob’s
mum, she’s got lots of water butts, and you know my parents have, but we
have not got around to doing it ourselves yet. [Hhld 14]
I’ve been asking my husband for six months to fit a water butt, but for some
reason he’s not done that. Then we went to his sister-in-laws in Kent, and
she’s got twelve water butts, amazing. She’s got a really huge house with
an annexe and all these water butts, it’s brilliant. I won’t be having twelve
but I’d like a water butt…I must get round to it. [Hhld 17]
Water butts were acquired through promotional campaigns (county councils,
supermarkets and water companies), inspired by friends, families or neighbours as in the
above quotes, or were already in the home when people moved in. The capacity for
different householders to consider and develop such forms of adaptation also related to
the level of support that might be available to acquire such devices. During the 2006
drought, for example, manufacturers of water butts could not keep up with demand
thwarting some consumers who had planned to install these devices:
This summer we’ve watered by hand with a watering can. We tried
desperately to get one [a water butt] from [the water company] but they’d
sold out. [Hhld 16].
Particularly for those who lacked the time or skills to install rainwater systems or had
concerns over safety there was a perceived lack of institutional support, as articulated by
one respondent:
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I think, probably as I said before, I feel as though, if I make the comparison
with house insulation, there are grants and there are incentives around
insulating your house to reduce electricity and gas bills. I feel as though
there should be a similar type of thing, either sponsored or, sponsored by
the Government, or organised by the water board to actually put some
things in place. Like reusing bath water you know, if you have like a water
saving kit, kits not the word but, you know if we had a water butt or some
valve in order to reuse bath water and filters etc, whatever was supplied, I
feel as though that is something that is lacking and would be beneficial.
[Hhld 15]
For this householder, developing more resilient garden watering practices was also
related to the issue of ‘preparedness’, for example, guidance that helped people to ‘get
into the routine’ of using a water butt:
You know something that you got used to every year, ‘start using the water
butt’…you could probably get to the point where you didn’t need a hosepipe
ban because people are becoming more efficient earlier [Hhld 15].
Even without such forms of institutional support using rainwater on the garden was
already a widespread practice and in the context of concerns over future scarcity
rainwater collection was a method of adaptation being seriously contemplated by many
households. We found that interviewees regardless of particular orientations shared a
common belief that the use of pristine tap water outdoors was wasteful and that
recycling or rainwater collection at some scale should form a significant part of
institutional planning for future scarcity.
While hosepipes, and the associated water guzzling device lawn sprinklers, are
accepted by households as part of restrictions, the acceptability of newer devices like
pressure washers was more ambiguous. This foregrounding of some devices over
others appeared to have had an influence on what householders considered normal or
wasteful, and therefore shaped adaptations people made. We found, for instance,
situations where householders expressed guilt about using a garden sprinkler but had no
such reservations about using a pressure washer. Relatively new garden technologies,
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like the pressure washer, have yet to become fully established in household routines but
their role was being reappraised by households highlighting the different evaluations
householders make when assessing need (see Box 5.3). Focusing on the evolving role
of new devices such as the pressure washer in peoples’ lives is important because it
shows how new needs and normal ways of practice develop. This example also serves
to show how the activities and advice of friends, family and neighbours can influence
decisions to normalise certain activities. In this particular instance, and in the example
of rainwater butts, we can also see how decisions about normal outdoor practice are
mediated through social interaction and how in correspondence to Strang’s portrayal:
‘gardening offers…a way of connecting…with the lending of tools, the giving of advice’
(Strang 2004: p207). Such informal everyday interactions, aside from individual
motivations, may help to explain how new watering obligations form or routines take
hold.
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Box 5.3: Negotiating the need for the pressure washer
We bought it, I think three years ago and have hardly ever used it. Again because of the hosepipe
ban I’ve always associated that with a ban, so I’ve not used it. So I think we’ve washed the plastic
table down once with it and perhaps a car once when it was a novelty. And we thought it would be
good for the patio, but the patio has never needed it and so I think it was, at the moment, a bit of
waste of money. [Hhld 16]
My [parents] did have a pressure car wash hose but they haven’t been using that and no one’s
gone round and used it, it’s sort of been off limits because of the shortage, which has been a big
difference. [Hhld 13]
Well during the course of the week there would be a sort of green algae and build up of residues
and everything else, it’s amazing what a difference it [the pressure washer] really does make, just
cleaning it up really. But it’s infrequently, definitely once, maybe twice a year at the most. [Hhld 21]
My husband brings the pressure washer home [from work] and does both the patios and paths and
white furniture and that’s once a year. [Hhld 03]
I do the patio once a year with a brush but I am in future borrowing my sister’s, she’s got one of
these power hoses and so I thought well next year I might borrow that. [Hhld 06]
But sometimes we use the jet hose in the winter time to get all the green silt off the water feature
because of where the sun gets on it ….[Hhld 09]
My husband’s got a boat, that’s really what the pressure washer is for. When he gets the boat out
of the water, because it’s covered in barnacles. So he’ll be 2 or 3 hours with the pressure washer,
but that’s about all, that and doing the patio once a year are about the only times it’s used. [Hhld
04]
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5.8 CONCLUSION
Current strategies designed to transform garden practices in the UK in the context of
climate change and peak summer demand focus on promoting and developing drought
resistant gardening (Ryan 2006). There is some evidence that people are making such
adaptations, for instance ‘no longer growing things that they love’. This strategy of
promoting new types of gardening styles may appeal to some of those for whom growing
plants is the primary aim of being outdoors, but is less likely to appeal to those who
value gardens for different reasons. In addition, recent research has highlighted the
‘contrariness’ of the British gardener, for whom maintaining a luxuriant border or an
immaculate lawn is appealing precisely because they are difficult to grow (Bisgrove and
Hadley 2002: p61). The evident contradiction here is that for some people keeping
traditional plants alive under conditions of water scarcity might be seen as a challenge
not a burden. The uncertainties in the disruption caused by the hosepipe ban suggests
understanding the dynamics of demand involves bringing together the meanings of
specific outdoor practices (playing, gardening, car washing, cleaning) for different
households, and of the social and technical contexts that structure particular orientations
to outdoor life.
In exploring these aspects we have shown how social obligations for water use in
outdoor life are bound up in social, cultural, technological, emotional and symbolic
meanings of what gardens are for.
• Householders’ responses suggest outdoor practices are relatively more flexible than
indoor ones, although this did not necessarily equate with less water use but
adaptation using new methods and devices to ‘beat’ the ban. Droughts may disrupt
some activities but they do not necessarily challenge normal ways of doing things.
Outdoor water use is influenced by interactions with friends, neighbours, and public
authorities and bound up in questions of convenience, care, play and pleasure as
much as economic or environmental valuations.
• Different social orientations to outdoor living translated into different garden
technologies and watering obligations. Playground orientations, which were
underpinned by the notion of the garden as a space for entertaining children and
relaxing with guests, had paddling pools and other forms of water using fun. More
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productive orientations, common to avid gardeners with a keen interest in cultivating
plants and an extensive knowledge of micro-climate and of what would grow given
certain conditions, could involve intensive watering but also often involved DIY water
collection systems. Convenient gardens, which often had a simple layout and few
hardy shrubs and trees, were generally the domain of low maintenance gardeners
and involved minimal watering. Other gardens were transitional, yet to develop a
clear orientation towards gardening life, with outdoor space often a site of ongoing
development or a test site for different types of gardening activities and technologies
that might shape intensity of water use
• Declarations of general support for a hosepipe ban were often subject to further
qualification relating to issues as diverse as perceptions of water shortage, the
duration of the ban, experiences overseas, as well as clarity and fairness of
restrictions with relation to different commercial and domestic usages and users.
Formal definitions of essential and non-essential use were seen as inconsistent and
irrational in the context of complexities associated with different outdoor practices
and technologies, and in light of wider experiences in the local community.
Restrictions like hosepipe bans are not neutral tools and can reinforce certain
understandings of normal practice by legitimizing some technologies and practices
(e.g. using a pressure washer on a patio) while restricting others (e.g. using
hosepipes or sprinklers on the lawn).
• The limited uptake of both water butts and more sophisticated domestic recycling
technologies was attributed to a lack of institutional support, for example, efforts to
collect rainwater were hampered by a shortage of water butts.
• In thinking about the trigger points for change in both indoor and outdoor practices
during hot weather we need to think beyond assumptions of individual behaviour to
understand the intersection between conventions of cleanliness and comfort, values
attributed to particular weather patterns, alternative technologies available, daily
working routines and seasonal habits.
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CHAPTER 6 - MANAGING DROUGHT AND DEMAND
6.1 INTRODUCTION
The second objective of the Drought and Demand research was: to learn about the role
and potential contribution of water resource managers in structuring demand. Our
analysis does not present an overview of drought management policy and drought
management plans (these aspects are covered by the Atkins component of the Drought
and Demand project – see O’Connor 2007). Instead we focus on the ways in which
water resource managers assessed risks in relation to supply arrangements, modified
drought management priorities to reflect the day-to-day reality of drought and how
demand management strategies were negotiated between managers and regulatory
authorities.
We begin this chapter by looking at the nature of drought itself, in particular arguing that
we need to understand drought as socially ‘produced’ rather than a simple consequence
of natural conditions. We review contested definitions of the drought described by water
managers and national regulators and consider how these reflected different frames of
reference and priorities. In the second section we look more specifically at local and
regional level strategies for adapting to drought and how these were related to
established supply arrangements, to current commercial priorities and commitments to
levels of customer service provision, and to shifting frameworks of environmental and
social regulation. In the final section we highlight key issues emerging, especially the
implications for developing effective forms of adaptation across different scales and
regimes of supply and demand management.
6.2 DEFINING THE DROUGHT
A common way of defining drought is as a natural event, caused by a lack of rainfall over
a certain period of time or a continuous period of dry weather. In this vein, the official
definition used by the Environment Agency, draws attention to the natural conditions
structuring droughts, that is, the “absence of significant rainfall” with the result that
“groundwater levels, spring discharges and river flows all fall” (Environment Agency
2002: p43). In 2006 the key ‘natural’ dimensions defining drought were two successive
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winters of below average rainfall that failed to adequately replenish water supplies in
many areas of the south east of England. Groundwater resources were particularly
affected, in contrast, for example, to the 1995 drought where surface water shortage was
the primary problem. In some areas, including chalk areas of the Thames Valley and the
south coast, both groundwater and river levels were exceptionally low leading to
environmental damage (Environment Agency 2006a). Official records showed rainfall in
the south east of England had been much lower than for the same period in 1974-76
(Environment Agency 2006b).
Droughts are also defined in relation to local environmental and social impacts. As Cole
and Marsh have described: “contrasting hydrological characteristics, water resource
management options and patterns of water usage can produce substantially different
vulnerabilities for any given region” (Cole and Marsh 2006: p7). In order to reflect local
conditions and the variability of social impacts, absolute definitions of drought are seen
as unworkable. Instead, the water sector adopts a working definition of drought that
refers to conditions whereby the security of water supply is identified to be at risk due to
dry weather such that normal everyday life becomes affected. As one of the water
regulators we interviewed explained, while there may be physical conditions that worsen
drought, droughts are essentially a social phenomena, they are defined by how “they
interrupt stuff we normally do”. This definition reflects a ‘precautionary risk-based’
approach, one in which drought is defined and managed in relation to avoiding the risk of
water shortage for disruption to public supply.
The significance of this risk-based approach to defining drought can be seen if we reflect
on the fluidity of drought definitions historically, for example contrasting drought
management in 1976 with that of 2006. In 1976 the problem of drought was by and large
considered a problem for engineers to resolve. Within the context of a ‘state-hydraulic’
model of water management, dominated by a public service ethos and large scale
engineering mentality (Bakker 2003), the challenge for engineers was:
“to find new water to replace the sources that were drying up; to make links
between networks so that surplus water could get to areas of shortage; to
discourage the unnecessary use of water; and generally to squeeze the last
drop out of the system for the 50 million people in homes, farms and
factories who needed it” (Andrews 1976: p1).
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Measures included, for example, pumping water back up dams on the River Thames,
despite the knock on effects, including increased pollution and salinity, which affected
farmers and other industries downstream (Morren 1980). The 2006 drought by contrast
emerged in the context of a matured ‘market-environmentalist’ model of water
management (Bakker 2003), in which the logic of engineering was balanced by a need
to incorporate the economics of supply (within market terms), those of the environment
(in ecological terms) and those of demand – not so much in terms of ensuring continuity
of supply for citizens but relating to the need to maintain levels of service for consumers.
This particular framing of water management produced a rather different context in
which the drought developed.
Early in spring 2006, media reports had warned of the threat of standpipes and rota cuts
that invoked memories of the supply cut-offs introduced in 1976, but companies stressed
that such measures were unlikely to be considered in the context of current planning
regimes. In claiming to be more prepared for the drought than in previous years, water
resource managers argued that ‘draconian’ options involving supply cut-offs or
depressurising the system were no longer a necessary or acceptable part of drought
management citing issues of quality and levels of service to customers. While in the
1976 drought an emphasis was quite definitively placed on maximising abstraction in
order to meet demand, particularly for industry (Andrews 1976), in 2006 drought
conditions were in part defined in relation to maintaining the resilience of ecological
systems and habitats. In this regulatory context, there was no dramatic engineering
response to squeeze out every last drop for public supply; instead the emphasis was on
a phased strategy of communication campaigns, followed by hosepipe bans and non-
essential use bans in order to prevent such a scenario emerging. This move to a more
contextual definition of drought, informed by the environmental risk assessments of
regulators and managers and tied to shifting contexts of service provision, highlighted
how the characterization of drought in 2006 was a more complex and contested than
absolute definitions imply. This was evident in four key respects.
6.2.1 Characterising the drought
First we identified the significant problems managers had when characterising and
promoting the drought. This was an unusual drought in the sense that it was a dry winter
rather than a dry summer drought. Early in the development of the project a member of
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our steering committee, with reference to the heavy rainfall that week, remarked: “It’s a
drought, but not as we know it”. While periods of short-term rainfall during summer 2006
had helped to alleviate surface water shortages, deficits in groundwater required more
prolonged periods of rainfall for effective replenishment. Therefore, while groundwater
resources remained vulnerable in many areas few of the visible signs or common
indicators of drought (e.g. low surface water reservoirs) were to be perceived. In
addition, even in areas where drought management plans had been enacted,
groundwater shortages did not reach a level where managers were experiencing short-
term problems of supply availability or facing the ‘emergency’ situations of previous
drought years where standpipes or rota cuts had been introduced. In light of this lack of
visible evidence of drought, some observers questioned whether this was actually a
drought at all. One journalist wrote “this has got to be the wettest drought yet” (Dowling
2006), while another asked “what happened to the drought?” (Winterman 2006).
6.2.2 Duration of the drought
Second, we found that managers experienced considerable problems when defining the
duration of drought as reflected in decisions about the timing of drought responses.
Eight companies in the south east introduced hosepipe bans during the early summer
but the decision to remove restrictions (and in effect signal the end of the drought) was
rendered more difficult by continued uncertainty. In the August 2006 ‘Drought Prospects’
update the Environment Agency warned that: “The drought is not over, and people and
businesses should continue to save water to reduce the risk of serious water supply
problems next year” (Environment Agency 2006d: p1). As the winter of 2006/07
approached uncertainties persisted about the duration of the drought. Some companies
had removed restrictions by October, but many water managers remained concerned
about the prospect of another dry winter, suggesting that this would take them into
‘uncharted territory’ in respect of existing drought planning models and capabilities. In
light of this continued uncertainty many companies still had hosepipe bans in place
alongside flood warnings, with some only being removed in February 2007. Despite
removing restrictions regulators and water companies continued to urge caution in water
use for their customers with concerns that summer 2007 might be the warmest yet
(Waterwise 2007a). These ongoing measures caused managers to question the public
acceptance of prolonged drought restrictions and the potential for diminished
effectiveness of such appeals:
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There’s two thoughts on this, you know, you could say right, let’s take the
hosepipe ban off irrespective because we are not going to save a lot of
water by having a hosepipe ban over the winter. And then you have the full
fanfare when you re-impose it in April or March next year, even though the
situation hasn’t changed. Or there’s the other one, no, keep it on and keep
the message and keep reinforcing that message all the way through, even
though we are not going to save much water we are still keeping this on
because you still need to help us save water. So there’s two arguments to
that side of, should we lift it or not for a winter period, when it’s not going to
make materially much difference anyway. [WRM 06]
6.2.3 Spatial scale of the drought
A third problem we identified concerned the spatial scale at which the drought was to be
defined (i.e. regional or local) and strategies for mitigation enacted. A prominent water
saving promotional campaign was the ‘Beat the Drought’ website which brought together
eight water companies with support from the Defra and the Environment Agency. The
aim was to develop a consistent regional message on drought. This also involved a
degree of coordination over the implementation of hosepipe bans across the different
water company areas. This coordination was widely perceived by representatives of the
water sector as a necessary part of a more integrated regional planning regime designed
to ensure the more equitable distribution of regional resources and of ‘sharing the pain’
of resource pressures. This regional level of response was regarded by many as
preferable to each company developing its own communication plan, which it was also
suggested might be taken less seriously by consumers, as articulated by managers we
interviewed:
Well if you do it by company you could say, well we’ve got a drought down
here but it’s not up there. How do you explain that to your customers, it’s
difficult? But if the [Environment] Agency says, ‘from the Thames
southwards, from Portsmouth eastwards, this is our normal storage and we
are down here’ and it comes from a Government department, people take
notice. And if it’s headed by the Agency, it has a huge effect on people’s
behaviour. [WRM 01]
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This “coordinated and dense” regional approach to communicating the drought, pushed
by the Government and regulators, presented a stark contrast to droughts of the 1980s
and 1990s in the UK, which resource managers recalled were defined more by localised
assessments of the need for restrictions. However, not all water companies serving the
south east introduced hosepipe bans in 2006 and managers did not always agree on the
type of drought being experienced or even whether they were in a drought at all, for
example one interviewee explained that:
We would say we were in potential drought. The Environment Agency
define the region as being in drought at the moment… Our state of
resources in reservoirs and ground water, we don’t feel as though we are
properly in a drought yet. We are in a potential drought. [WRM 03]
As another manager commented “each drought is spatially and temporally unique”, and
while the 2006 drought was regarded as a problem across the whole of the south east
we found much variability inter-regionally.
With respect to physical conditions structuring drought a distinction was made between
the areas further east, which had only experienced one dry winter, compared to southern
areas where managers faced a third dry winter. Such distinctions in drought conditions
being experienced were carried down to quite localised level, for example one manager
mentioned a specific town in Kent where peculiarly dry rainfall patterns had been noted
over a number of years. In May 2006, Essex and Suffolk Water declared that, following
their own drought plan and based on current resource levels, hosepipe restrictions were
not warranted and questioned the validity of regional assessments of drought risk
compared to local evaluations (BBC News 2006b).
Arguments about the need for a regional or local definition of drought were also tied to
questions of consumer engagement – for example, the importance of giving consumers
a true sense of the drought risk in their immediate vicinity to give them an active role in
alleviating drought rather than applying blanket restrictions with little spatial point of
reference. While some companies who supported a universal ban in principle
questioned whether restrictions might ‘normalise’ drought and therefore weaken
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householder responsiveness when really needed, or heighten customer perceptions of
water company mismanagement. Interestingly, while those companies that introduced
hosepipe bans experienced a decline in demand from expected levels, this was also the
case in adjacent supply areas without such restrictions. This caused further speculation
about whether hosepipe bans were necessarily behind diminishing demand, or whether
interpretations of resource problems had ‘drifted’ across water planning jurisdictions
allowing companies without restrictions to effectively ‘piggy back’ on the strategies other
companies implemented.
6.2.4 Public representation of drought
Finally, our analysis of interviews with managers and regulators identified a persistent
problem related to the public representation of the drought. Analyses of previous UK
droughts have identified factors such as media representations, water company
investment strategies and operational decisions as critical in structuring water crises, in
assigning responsibilities and defining appropriate solutions (Bakker 2003, Osborn and
Marvin 2001). For example, the 1995-96 drought affecting parts of Yorkshire highlighted
how the misinterpretation of demand forecasting systems, failure to maintain technical
networks and various public relations disasters all contributed to the social production of
crisis (Bakker 2003). In 2006 some of these factors again played a role in framing public
perceptions of water shortage and in shaping responses. For example, earlier in the
summer public debates about the legitimacy of leakage dominated the headlines, with
Thames Water singled out for intense media attention relating to perceived
mismanagement of their networks (BBC News 2006c). In fact some respondents argued
that the drought only became significant regionally because of the Thames Water
problem and the media attention this had generated. Managers in areas not yet
experiencing acute water stress reported that the ‘media hype’ around the introduction of
hosepipe bans had caused some consumers to question why their companies had not
imposed bans and whether they should do so. Interviewees also suggested that the
media had played a key role in framing public perception about the scale of the drought,
for example, in conflating issues about the drought with longer term concerns about the
sustainability of resources and climate change. At the same time companies themselves
recognised the need to promote the drought through media engagement. Campaigns
were initiated that stressed peculiarities of groundwater droughts in an attempt to
convince consumers they were facing a drought. At the same time, water companies
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across the south east worked with the media to appeal to their consumers to be careful
with water, and to overcome the idea of Britain as a relatively wet country abundant with
water.
Summary: Fluid definitions of drought
It is clear that each drought is a unique and complex phenomena framed by the
assessments and priorities of different social needs, institutional priorities and
environmental conditions. At one level drought can be defined in relation to the impact
of dry weather patterns on activities of different users (e.g. agriculture, industry,
domestic, environmental) and on everyday practices (e.g. gardening, showering,
laundering). This is further complicated by how drought is ‘defined’ by water companies,
regulators and government based on different precautionary risk assessments of the
likely impact of weather conditions on human activities and customer perceptions. The
impact of different weather conditions will also vary depending on the differential needs
of local users and capacities of supply networks, creating challenges for attempts to
define the scale of drought and coordinate responses. It helps therefore to think of
drought as a relational and dynamic concept. In this context, there are no single
determinants of drought, no definitive baselines through which to evaluate impacts or
risks for different users, and no universally appropriate scale at which to initiate drought
mitigation. This fluid conceptualisation of drought raises a further set of questions about
how management strategies enacted during the drought were influenced by different
evaluations and priorities of regulators and managers and about how far these strategies
were defined with relation to local contexts of supply and demand.
6.3 LOCAL VARIABILITY IN DEMAND AND THE ASSESSMENT OF DROUGHT
RISK
Under the 2003 Water Act companies have to produce drought plans, which are now
subject to regulatory review and public consultation. The purpose of drought plans is to
describe how companies will manage their resources, for example, based on estimates
of borehole or reservoir yields and estimated demand. As summarised by one resource
manager we interviewed “we have to look at the supplies and demands and meet the
headroom requirement, it then triggers the need for some form of intervention”. The
specific processes and sequence of supply and demand options available to water
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managers is explained in detail in the Atkins component of the Drought and Demand
research (see O’Connor 2007) and is not something we describe here. While formal
drought plans had framed the drought management responses of water managers we
interviewed these were interpreted and tailored with relation the emergent situation in
specific supply zones. As Cashman has suggested external perturbations like drought
are “by their nature unpredictable, locally significant and lead to particularised
responses” (Cashman 2006: p502).
Managers’ evaluations of drought related both to supply conditions and to whether 2006
was considered an unusual year regarding demand in their particular jurisdictions and
how different users were affected. These evaluations were based on resource
managers’ specialised knowledge of the spatial variability of different user routines, with
distinctions drawn between the temporalities of demand in areas dominated by rural or
industrial activities. For example:
What we tend to find is that we have unusual peak demand events in May
and June, when our vegetable growers start using water for washing down
vegetables. So if you look at it regionally, there’s an area in the middle of
the Fens where demand picks up, not necessarily because the households
are using more, but because the industry is using more. [WRM 04]
Such distinctions between the activities of users are important when deciding whether to
designate an area as being in drought. For example, in agricultural areas like the Fens,
regional regulators explained that it would be a dry February to July that would influence
the designation of drought.
Managing seasonal peaks attributed to certain user groups is relatively routine for water
resource managers, but keeping track of the conjunction of the dynamics of demand,
emerging network problems or weather conditions is a formidable task. For example,
one manager explained that they had some rural areas in the Fens where they had
experienced an increase in demand (measured as distribution input) which they
attributed partly to increased usage by market gardeners, but also to an elevation in
leakage levels related to dry weather, ground movement in peat soils and the
configuration of small pipes which were vulnerable to cracks and bursts. The
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vulnerability of such areas in drought was accentuated by a lack of ‘headroom’ (a ratio of
planned needs versus resource capability) at times of peak demand. From such
accounts we can begin to see how the localised experience of drought is configured
through variability in ‘demand’. In this case demand being understood as something that
arises not only from consumers but is related to supply network investment strategies,
including planning for leakage and target headroom, and geography.
The knowledge and expertise of water resource managers is crucial to understand the
complex structure and dynamics of demand and the challenges these present in defining
an area as being in drought or not. For example, with relation to the likely temporality of
disruptions, whether increased demand in the system is related to a short-term anomaly
in demand or burst pipe, or a more prolonged problem. The local knowledge and
experience of managers here becomes critical in defining the likely scale and duration of
the problem. In turn such risk assessments are used to formulate company investment
priorities during drought, including whether to allocate additional resources for demand
management strategies in certain areas or for particular consumers (including enhanced
leakage control or the stepping up of water conservation campaigns).
Yet it was not only managers’ tacit understandings of the complexities and contingencies
created by local contexts of supply and demand that influenced the strategies enacted in
the drought. Drought management was also shaped by factors such as the need for
regionally consistent approaches and by the institutional contexts imposed by market-
environmentalism. We now consider how these factors interacted to influence the
prioritisation of the principal management measures introduced in 2006 as a response to
water scarcity in the south east.
6.4 ESTABLISHING DROUGHT MANAGEMENT PRIORITIES IN 2006
Communication campaigns enacted by water companies during the drought were often
targeted to specific areas, for example, managers described how it was routine practice
to send letters to residents in areas of particularly high demand advising them to be
water wise. With relation to supply network management, managers described the need
to enhance monitoring of certain local reservoir or borehole levels with relation to
maintaining secure supplies, and how in some areas leakage detection and repair
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programmes were being intensified. In the context of a third dry winter scenario, options
for refill or recharge through applying for drought orders or permits were being
evaluated, as were those for laying new pipes to transfer water from alternative sources.
In these scenarios, drought management was mediated in relation to local contexts of
supply as well as framed by formal legislation and national regulating frameworks. In the
words of one manager when managing peak demand in drought: “It comes down to how
you manage the system, your awareness of what’s going on, your knowledge about
what your capabilities are in terms of how quickly can you transfer water through the
system”.
Yet options for drought adaptation were not only related to local supply and demand
arrangements but were influenced by the need for regional cohesiveness and shaped by
the priorities of a market environmentalist mode of water management. Hosepipe bans
were implemented at a company or resource zone level rather than in relation to areas
of specifically high demand or acute water stress. Managers also explained how the
economics of supply and established levels of service defined the parameters of drought
planning and management. In the following paragraphs we explore how the complex
interplay of formalised drought planning, local supply arrangements, and market
environmentalist objectives shaped responses to the drought, including the decision to
impose restrictions on demand or to pursue alternative supply or demand management
options. We focus on three key aspects of drought planning (technical connectivity,
leakage management and environmental regulation) that defined contexts for adaptation
during the 2006 drought, and which are framing debates about the future resilience of
water management.
6.4.1 Infrastructures, interconnectivity and drought adaptation
The drought of 2006 was not considered an emergency or civil contingency in the same
sense as some historical droughts, specifically that of 1976, where supply had failed in
some areas. Managers attributed this partly to the benefit of investments made to
‘bolster the system’ and to better integrate supply networks, including regional
interconnection ‘as a way of providing resilience’. Reflecting on controversial media
coverage that raised the spectre of a ‘return to 1976’ managers and regulators stressed
the thirty years of investments that have taken place since then. Another manager
explained that the drought problem in 1995 was exacerbated in Yorkshire because the
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network in affected areas was not very robust and lacked interconnectivity. Learning
from such experiences water companies, by 2006, had strived to develop distribution
networks with much improved capacity for moving water about and for getting it to areas
most in need. Yet interconnectivity is, in another sense, a double edged sword. On the
one hand having as connected a network as possible would appear to foster resilience
during drought by increasing the potential pool of emergency supplies. On the other
hand, some have made the argument that interconnectivity can flatten everyone’s
headroom by averaging supplies out over a number of resource zones, especially where
key resources support large areas. This meant that in 2006, arguably, there were more
areas at risk which therefore increased vulnerability regionally.
Localised configurations of resources, storage facilities and distribution technologies
clearly created different contexts for the definition of drought and adaptation to it. A vital
part of drought management is the ability to monitor water levels in hundreds of
individual storage tanks along with the capacity of treatment works to maintain
throughput of quality water, for example, as one manager explained:
Some reservoirs will hold something like 400 days worth of water but
others will only hold 200 days, or less than 100, and that’s what tends to
define how far you can let the reservoir drop at certain times of the year
before you bring in restrictions [WRM 01]
While many urban systems are relatively robust, in some rural areas water towers might
be empty within a matter of hours. An added complication with groundwater droughts
(like that experienced in 2006) was the difficulty of gauging receding water levels in
underground sources, making these a relatively unpredictable source when faced with
peak demand. Smaller companies reliant on groundwater were generally less flexible in
terms of conjunctive use possibilities compared to those who could choose to use
surface water in preference to groundwater. While in areas where resource zones were
highly interconnected and covered a large area (e.g. the Essex resource zone),
managers explained that there were no localised pressure points as such but rather the
whole area was considered to be under stress. The ability of different managers to
transfer resources is therefore limited in a number of significant ways, with droughts
often reigniting debates about the possibilities of improved connectivity.
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At one level there has been some debate about improving interconnectivity between
infrastructures at a national scale (BBC News 2006d). This has been countered by
arguments about social, economic and environmental costs associated with such
developments compared to alternatives (Environment Agency 2006e, House of Lords
2006). At intermediate scales, however, there is widespread support for increased
interconnectivity and integration across regions, resource zones and river basins. For
water companies the ability to move water around at an inter-regional level is now firmly
tied to commercialised contexts of water management. For example, one water
resources manager explained that “back in the old days when water was two or three
pence or something you just opened a valve and did your neighbour a good turn”, while
another explained that nowadays “because water is expensive to move around we have
to have commercial deals to set these things up”. Other respondents commented that
the configuration of water management jurisdictions, whether under privatised or
municipal control, have always produced boundary disputes but that now these are
defined more by the economics of supply rather than by ‘town-hall politics’.
In light of concerns over future water scarcity managers in some of the driest regions of
the UK have seriously contemplated both the commercial and social benefits of
improved transfers across water supply jurisdictions. For example, Essex and Suffolk
Water have proposed an £80 million scheme to construct additional pipelines to transfer
water from Norfolk to Essex, whilst Anglian Water has plans to import water into East
Anglia from the River Trent (House of Lords 2006). But, while there appears to be
general acceptance of the need for greater interconnectivity many water resource
managers remain unsure of how to proceed with such agreements in the face of existing
socio-technical arrangements, future resource pressures and the political and economic
uncertainties these might bring. One of the most pressing concerns being articulated by
managers concerns questions of resource allocation across supply zones:
The issue would be if one company was resource rich and another was
resource poor how much political and economic willingness there would be
to subsidise the resource poor? [WRM 06]
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Again the issue here is reduced to a matter for economics: private water companies who
are water rich were perceived by managers as likely to seek to maximise their economic
return.
Yet opportunities for developing increased interconnectivity and the re-configuration of
water distribution are not just about the realignment of commercial interests in a market-
oriented regime but are further bound up in debates about the historical organisation of
water networks and the legacy of bulk supply agreements, as explained by one supply
manager:
There are these historical relationships between water companies that are
tied in legislation you know…and we can’t not give them [neighbouring
water company] that water if they want it…It goes back to the days before
the water authorities and obviously the [privatised] water companies…some
of these grander schemes were brought about through legislation and Acts
of Parliament. And some of the things they did were to protect the interests
of the various different water bodies at the time. So we have these things
scattered about… and there are these relationships…the agreements won’t
change, but the practices around whether we would take it and what we
would take that’s what would change. [WRM 02]
Supply managers at another water company in the south east explained that some pre-
existing bulk supply agreements were now outdated, effectively locking them into what
they considered inappropriate methods of managing demand. Managers here
specifically referred to a legally binding agreement drawn up in the 1960s with a
neighbouring company to manage the bulk transfer of water. In order to draw their full
entitlement of water from a reservoir in the neighbouring supply zone during drought, it
was required that the company implement a hosepipe ban. This was deemed only fair
as customers of this shared resource living in the neighbouring utilities supply zones
were already subject to restrictions. For these managers the dilemma was whether to
impose restrictions they considered unnecessary (in light of current resource levels and
the reported success of existing demand management programmes) or risk losing a
resource that might be required later in the summer if the drought was more prolonged
that expected. Another question raised by managers was whether it was fair that their
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customers should lose access to a resource they had historically invested in because a
neighbouring company had failed to invest in networks such that a ban was required.
Some managers questioned how a fair basis for the evaluation of future entitlements to
resources might be defined and whether capital funding might be made available for
more strategic regional development. At present however, while regulatory frameworks
support individual companies pooling resources to develop transfer options there is little
strategic overview on a regional basis.
Questions also arose in relation to distributional disparities between larger companies
with a highly flexible system and extensive surface water storage, and those reliant on
more localised groundwater supplies. Some larger companies are effectively able to
capitalise on opportunities to alleviate resource pressures during droughts better than
others. For example, early in the summer of 2006 Thames Water was singled out for
criticism in the media and by regulators for their inability to meet leakage targets and
continued mismanagement of networks. Yet, by late summer, it was reported that the
company appeared to have alleviated some of their supply problems by switching on
pumps on the River Thames at times of peak flow to ‘grab’ water into surface water
storage. This ability to reinforce the security of the supply system was attributed by
managers to the “way the rainfall ran”, and to the specific technological and spatial
organisation of supply and distribution networks.
While this situation was clearly beneficial for Thames Water it accentuated uncertainties
for other companies, especially those more reliant on groundwater, generating concern
about potential inequalities in distribution:
Our concern for next year is if, because of the pattern of rainfall and
Thames’ water storage situation, they decide to either lift their hosepipe ban
or not re-impose it, and therefore a major player in the south east is no
longer imposing restrictions…while other companies that are totally reliant
or majority reliant on ground water may still be facing a groundwater
drought even though it’s raining… if that happens there will be a few voices
out there saying ‘please restrain your water use’ and there will be others
saying ‘you don’t need to restrain your water use’ and therefore there’s
going to be mixed messages going on and we worry that will remove some
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of the benefit that we have enjoyed this year because of the universal
pattern of restrictions across the south east (WRM 06)
For managers in this company and for others with less flexible or integrated networks,
the problem of distributional inequalities was as much about public perception as about
hydraulics or economics.
Managers also highlighted cases where the strategy of integration might prove less
feasible on the grounds of economic assessments. Questions of scale and public
perception become increasingly important in this context. Public controversy in
Yorkshire in 1995 was sparked by the sight of tankers being used to transport water to
rural villages to top up supplies, yet for companies tanker operations at some scale
remain a viable option. For example, topping up reservoirs by transporting water with
tankers might be considered appropriate for small rural areas over a limited time, and
indeed this strategy is regularly used to alleviate short-term problems in some areas:
It’s just an economic thing to do, it’s not a disastrous thing it’s often cheaper
because you hit one peak week every two or three years, it’s often cheaper
to bite the bullet and say right we’ll tanker for those three weeks…it’s the
alternative of running a pipe 20 kilometres to a village of 8 houses (WRM
05).
The issues of interconnectivity that were being negotiated by water managers during the
2006 drought have been used here to emphasise the extent to which adaptation
capacities were co-dependent on the interplay of commercial contexts of provision,
socio-technical infrastructures, public perceptions and distributions of groundwater and
surface water. In addition, the assessment of drought risk for managers is differentiated
on the basis of such arrangements, for example, the decision to enact drought triggers
or impose some form of restriction. Questions about the scale of interconnectivity
required to alleviate future water scarcity also prompted discussion of water’s
uncooperative nature, and of the benefits of, and responsibilities for, different
arrangements of storage and distribution fit to local circumstances as well as strategic
national or regional priorities. As we explore, next with relation to the example of
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leakage, concepts of service provision and concerns about customer perception played
an important part in defining drought management options in 2006.
6.4.2 Leakage, legitimisation and adaptation to drought
As in the 1995 drought questions of leakage emerged in 2006 with implications for the
assessment of risk and the resilience of demand management strategies. Based on
water companies’ figures, as a component of water supply as a whole in the UK, leakage
appears to constitute about 22% of demand, although there is considerable variation
across companies (e.g. Thames Water reports leakage of over 30%). While these levels
appear high, at the time of the 2006 drought, most companies in the south east were in
fact achieving leakage targets, based on ‘economic levels of leakage’ as defined by the
economic regulator Ofwat (i.e. the amount it would cost to repair the leak compared with
sourcing water from elsewhere). Nonetheless leakage was the subject of much
controversy during the drought leading companies and regulators to debate the benefits
of driving below the ‘economic’ level, or of a new ‘sustainable level of leakage’ indicator
accounting for environmental and social benefits, as well as the economic costs, of
leakage control (House of Lords 2006).
Managers we interviewed were contemplating how they might educate consumers on
the complexities and dynamics of leakage:
Yes the south east are pretty well on top of their leakage levels…But the
point to get across to customers is it’s this recurring process, its sort of
educating the consumer that this happens, we get this leakage recurrence
day in and day out, we are constantly fighting leakage…People do think
that you’ll get to this ideal position…You’ll never have zero leakage, we
never have had zero leakage. [WRM 01]
For managers the ‘noise and distraction’ of leakage was perceived to be media-driven.
The leakage story gained momentum with reports that Thames Water had continually
failed to meet its leakage targets. The economic regulator Ofwat forced the company to
increase investment in the leakage repair programme to the equivalent of a fine of
£150million. The ‘crisis’ at Thames Water was further accentuated when the then
owners (German Utility Group, RWE) announced a 31% rise in pre-tax profits (£346.5m),
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and in the context of reports that price rises in the Thames area were set to increase by
24% over the next 5 years. In an effort to appease the public on this issue Thames
Water developed a number of strategies additional to the introduction of a hosepipe ban.
One was a high level advertising campaign in which iconic buildings (for example
Battersea Power Station) were used to illustrate the number of litres that investments in
new pipes would save, thus legitimising projected increases in water prices.
While the events at Thames Water dominated public debates about the legitimacy of
leakage, the general heightened awareness of this problem during the drought caused
other companies across the south east to revise their approaches to leakage
management. Companies reported that they had extended leakage detection
programmes in drought, for example, in resource zones where they expected more
leaks. Managers at more than one of the companies included in the study explained that
with relation to the prioritisation of leakage repair in drought they took a more pragmatic
and qualitative approach based on the likelihood of negative public perception rather
than prioritising repairs on the basis of quantifying the biggest leaks in terms of volumes
and fixing these first (see Box 6.1).
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Box 6.1: Public perception and the reprioritisation of leakage
I mean this year in particular, because of the sensitivity around leakage, we’ve really had to
change our focus to a degree on leak visibles in particular – leaks that people can see and
are inclined to pick up the phone and report. We’ve had to really try and plan them in and
get that work done a lot quicker…That’s because people assume that we, you know, if you
read the papers the water companies don’t do anything about their leakage, that’s the
impression. So obviously where we’ve got demand issues we like to target the areas so that
people can see us doing something about the leakage… And that has a marked impact on
us because while we are doing that the repair gangs are not as productive as they’d
normally be. A repair gang doing emergency work can average two jobs a day, a gang doing
normal planned work can probably average four jobs a day… in those areas where we are
struggling with demand, we put additional focus on leakage, you’ve always got to be mindful
that some of that demand could actually be leakage. [WRM 02]
Of course there was the old drum of leakage you know, you’ve got to have enhanced
leakage management to minimise your losses through leakage. And all companies are
working flat out to minimise leakage in any case. We made a conscious decision to do more
work and to fix visible leaks faster than we were otherwise doing because obviously visible
leaks, but most visible leaks are actually very small volumes of water and it’s the big leaks
that you can see that you ought to be chasing to save real water. So it’s redirecting
investment for the right reasons in the wrong way. [WRM 06]
This re-evaluation of leakage management suggests that, beyond evaluations based on
economic targets, the prioritisation of certain demand management options in 2006 was
based on public perception of water company activities (also demonstrated in Bakker’s
analysis of the 1995 drought). The question of what the balance of social, economic or
environmental gains from such strategies might be remains a matter of contention since
potentially more effective, planned, programmes for leak reduction become delayed.
Drought management in this sense becomes as much about public and stakeholder
legitimisation strategies as it does about actual water resource management. Indeed, as
the above example of fixing visible leaks first shows, water resource management
priorities may well be compromised in order to secure public confidence.
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6.4.3 Environmental regulation and drought adaptation
It was not only technical capacities, cost-based evaluations or customer service priorities
that defined forms of adaptation to drought in 2006 but also new contexts of
environmental regulation. Learning from the drought of 1995, the Water Summit in 1997
provided an impetus for changes to the regulatory framework for water such that
environmental concerns attained greater significance ‘environmental sustainability was
no longer a side issue but an important facet of regulation bringing with it an attendant
set of material practices’ (Cashman 2006: p490). This new regulatory framework
ensured that both customers and the environment were protected whilst promoting
private enterprise for service providers (Summerton 1998). So while the 1995 drought
accentuated conflicts between the commercial interests of companies and wider needs
of the environment and society that emerged under ‘arms length’ regulation (Cashman
2006), the 2006 drought offered an opportunity to evaluate how more stringent
regulatory frameworks had shaped drought management.
Clearly environmental regulation had played a part in prioritising the selection and
sequence of drought measures, with demand management now considered a first line of
defence in drought. In fact measures like hosepipe bans, communication campaigns
and non-essential use bans should be initiated before companies can apply for drought
permits to increase abstractive capacities (Defra, 2005). Water resource managers
explained that with more environmental regulation coming in at the national and EU level
it was much more difficult to secure a license change than had been the case in previous
droughts. While the drought of 1976 had been characterised by something of a ‘poacher-
gamekeeper’ problem, with regional water authorities in effect giving themselves
abstraction licences, the subsequent separation of utility and regulatory roles, with the
formation of the National Rivers Authority in the late 1980s, was seen by managers to
have created a new context for ‘cooperative’ regulation. Drought management in 2006,
while still defined as cooperative, was framed within a more stringent regulatory context:
The NRA [National Rivers Authority] were doing a genuine regulatory job
but they were doing it as the co-operative regulator to some extent, the
policeman who is helping you… now regulators [the Environment Agency]
are co-operative still… but they have to fulfil a whole series of tick boxes
themselves. Have you received the environmental report, have you proved
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this that and the other? So there is a lot more testing going on. As we’ve
moved on you’ve seen this throughout all levels, what we’ve seen is the risk
assessment concept basically, things that were done you know, without any
concerns at all thirteen years ago then came through a lot more regulations
and now they are being prohibited…So we are getting much more reluctant
to take risks now, in terms of particularly the environmental impact. [WRM
03]
Managers and regulators defined this new context for drought management in terms of a
precautionary ‘risk-based approach’, shaped particularly by environmental regulation,
which was seen to have helped generate a stronger basis for demand side management
during the drought. This risk based approach meant that in choosing to impose hosepipe
bans companies were also looking ahead toward the following winter when they
expected they might need to apply for drought permits to take more water from the
environment and fill reservoirs during the winter. One interviewee described how for
water companies securing a drought permit might be seen as an insurance measure,
while this rationale was seen by regulators as ‘out of kinship with the environment’.
Such arguments offer a reminder of the different basis on which environmental concerns
and drought response options continue to be evaluated by different water interests,
notably between water companies and the regulators. In the actual course of the 2006
drought the environment did not emerge as such a critical issue. The apparent success
of restrictions and a very wet August meant that many planned abstraction activities
remained contingencies.
As we have previously discussed another aspect of this new context of environmental
regulation and sustainability has been to support a coordinated approach to drought
management to share environmental and social responsibility of drought across
resource zones, catchments and regions. This has supported the need for more
collaboration between companies in defining response strategies through processes of
stakeholder engagement. In the south east, for example, regional resource groups were
set up in advance of the drought in order to coordinate responses. Yet the drought also
acted to expose some of the continuing tensions between companies and regulators
ideas of sustainable resource management.
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First, while managers had been prepared to commit to demand side approaches as a
short term response to drought, the question of how to adapt to future scarcity saw a
strong argument about the need for more robust supply emerge. The difficulty of gaining
permission for developing water resources, in the context of more rigorous assessment
of potential environmental damage to habitats, was questioned by some managers who
pointed to the idealised ‘natural’ environment that regulators were trying to protect,
against security of supply and the wider amenity value offered by reservoirs.
Second resource managers questioned whether environmental responsibility in relation
to curbing water use should be placed on them alone highlighting the need for stronger
building regulations to persuade property developers to install more efficient devices or
recycling systems. A familiar argument emerged here about whether it was appropriate
that private water companies should be encouraging their consumers to use less water
as a profit making business and commercial enterprise.
Finally, discussions with managers about water recycling, and particularly the benefits of
large scale recycling of effluent, highlighted the contradictory understandings of different
water interest groups when it came to defining what an environmentally sustainable
mode of drought adaptation was. Managers in some areas for example pointed out that
without the investments they had made in effluent recycling many rivers in the region
would have run dry in the drought with significant environmental damage. One manger
in particular highlighted the irony of having a very low flow river over the summer in an
area where a sewage pipeline ran alongside containing water that might have been
treated and used for replenishment. In this case attention was draw to the lack of
integration, with environmental regulation focused on processes of supply and
abstraction rather than reuse.
6.5 CONCLUSION
The relationship between drought and demand cannot be understood without an
analysis of the role of water institutions in ‘producing scarcity’ (Bakker 2003, Morren
1980). Rather than drought being defined by some sort of absolute measure, we found
more fluid definitions of drought emerged that shaped how drought management
strategies were developed and enacted. This fluid definition of drought risk created a
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significant tension between the promotion of drought awareness as a regional issue,
which was by and large supported by national regulators, or as locally specific, defined
with relation to a company’s own drought management plans and assessments of water
resources in specific areas:
� Local evaluations of the potential risk of drought in specific resource zones or supply
jurisdictions were complicated by factors including the mix of groundwater and
surface water resources, configurations of storage and distribution systems,
possibilities for bulk supply and transfer of resources across company boundaries,
and by the actions of different end-users.
� We found evidence that the shift towards a customer-based service industry, with an
emphasis on ensuring the ‘security of supply’ had redefined the demand
management options available to water managers. Drought management strategies
now focus on avoiding disruption to consumers as far as possible in order to
maintain agreed levels of supply to meet demand ruling out standpipes and rota cuts.
� Strategies of managing distribution networks influenced the experience of drought in
different areas and the perceived need to manage demand. Improved
interconnectivity played a part in defining regional and local vulnerabilities. During
the drought some companies had also prioritised the fixing of visible leaks even if
this would delay planned programmes of maintenance with the potential to save
more water.
� Demand management is prioritised over the development of new resources as a
drought management strategy but companies continue to press forward proposals
for future supply schemes with continued concerns about future scarcity. This raises
questions about the limits to demand side management (e.g. whether this is defined
simply as a short-term response to drought) and the optimal balance between efforts
to promote further change in consumer practice or rely on resource development in
the long-term.
� Finally, water companies continue to face difficulties in re-evaluating their roles as
commercial profit making companies in the business of selling water or as providers
of environmental services like water efficiency. The unique position water companies
find themselves in became apparent when managers talked about diminishing
demand over the summer and how they did not know what consumers were doing
for water.
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CHAPTER 7 - CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS The management of the 2006 drought in the south east of England was regarded as a
success by the water industry. The focus of demand management strategies was on
communication campaigns and hosepipe bans, positioning consumers with responsibility
for water saving strategies. Surveys undertaken during the drought identified people’s
expressed willingness to engage in water saving activities and adhere to hosepipe bans
(Consumer Council for Water 2006). Householders did not face the disruption of
standpipes or rota cuts and according to water company estimates, demand was 5 to
15% lower than expected (Duggin et al 2007). However, in some water resource zones,
peak demand reached record levels in July and there was real concern that, had there
been a third dry winter (which did not materialise), significant disruption to everyday life
would have been incurred. The disruption to normal practice and uncertainties produced
by the drought provided an important opportunity to reflect on current understandings of
the dynamics of demand, how demand can be adapted in the long-term and in light of
future challenges.
Everyday Practices
Householder perceptions of drought and interpretations of the need to adapt were
formulated out of complex historical and social associations with water and the
intermediating influence of companies, the media, and regulation (Chapter 3). While it
may be possible to identify particular orientations to the environment and indeed water
conservation, we cannot assume that there is a strong relationship between people’s
attitudes and their levels of water consumption. Indeed, when households talked more
specifically about their water use, we found many ‘normal’ practices that lead to water
consumption are just part of everyday routine rather than being shaped by attitude per
se (Chapter 4).
Unaffected routine water use was particularly clear for indoor activities, and especially
those related to personal hygiene. For example, the drought had not impacted on
activities such as flushing the toilet, often described as ‘just an automatic thing’, or on
the daily rituals of showering in preparation for work. In relation to these practices, water
consumption was shaped by a varied and diverse interplay of cleanliness conventions,
daily schedules, engrained habits, domestic devices and household water
infrastructures. It was evident for our householders that the drought had not impacted
111
fundamentally on social conventions that were significant in determining water use.
Everyday practices of laundering, toilet flushing and dishwashing were strongly framed
by what was considered right and proper in terms of hygiene, cleanliness or
consideration of others in different social settings.
These few observations do not do justice to the variation and diversity we found in
household practices. We identified how specific household practices were associated
with different structuring elements (meanings, convention, habits and routines, and
technologies) and argued it was the interrelationship between different structuring
elements that constituted demand within a specific context. For example, showering
involved a conjunction of numerous daily practices (e.g. going to work, relaxing, getting
clean), the technologies of the particular household (e.g. type of boiler, water pressure),
wider conventions of cleanliness (e.g. ideas about sweat and dirt) and the weather (e.g.
hot days).
In contrast to indoor living, water demand for outdoor living in a domestic context was
more directly affected by the drought (Chapter 5). Water resource managers explained
during interviews that gardening activities are particularly problematic in relation to peak
demand, and can represent as much as 50% of total demand in the summer months.
Hosepipes have essentially come to act as a symbol of excessive consumption,
although historically indoor technologies like the bath have also been associated with
waste (Trentmann and Taylor 2005). Indeed this is the only area where there is a direct
intervention in the form of a hosepipe ban which represents a rupture in the lives of
households requiring some renegotiation of dependencies on water. However, as with
indoor living practices we found impressive diversity in outdoor practices shaping
obligations for watering. Along with the diversity of garden size, content, and micro-
climate (wind, sun and soils) that shaped the need for watering, what people did in their
gardens varied dramatically ranging from cultivating plants, washing boats or cars, to
hosting parties and entertaining children. We highlighted four different orientations to
garden life that each embodied a particular notion of what the garden was for, supported
a particular configuration of technologies and practices and created particular water
demands: convenient, productive, playground and transitional orientations.
112
The analysis of diversity and variability in indoor and outdoor practices and the impact of
drought points to some fundamental challenges in defining notions of legitimate and
wasteful water use. Indeed, for indoor and outdoor use, the baselines of normal
consumption vary dramatically and so too do the implications of any change brought
about by drought conditions or restrictions. Orientations towards water in everyday life
can appear contradictory as households struggle to gauge where the boundaries of
legitimate practice lie, especially with relation to different interests and obligations (e.g.
childcare, leisure, work, etc.). Decisions about how much water was enough were in part
defined by available technologies and capacities (the size of the dishwasher, garden or
hot water tank) but also by internalised rules of what was ‘normal’ (e.g. only one load of
washing a day) or by valuations beyond water (e.g. saving on the use of dishwasher
filters or washing powder). Defining essential and nonessential use is therefore as
difficult for indoor as much as outdoor water use. What counts as optional or necessary
usage is determined by a configuration of the different meanings of practices, the
pressures of everyday routine and obligation, social conventions, and specific fittings or
technologies.
Demand and the management of supply
Rather than drought being defined by some sort of absolute measure, we found more
fluid definitions of drought emerged that shaped how drought management strategies
were developed and enacted. Working definitions of drought were defined by regulators
as relating to conditions where weather conditions threatened the security of water
supply such that everyday life would be affected.
Consequently ‘drought’ became defined when water managers and regulators perceived
a risk of ‘interrupting stuff people normally do’. Local evaluations of the potential risk of
drought in specific resource zones or supply jurisdictions were complicated by a range of
other factors including the mix of groundwater and surface water resources,
configurations of storage and distribution systems, possibilities for bulk supply and
transfer of resources across company boundaries, and by the actions of different end-
users. These variable factors were instrumental in structuring both perceptions of
drought risk and in shaping responses. This fluid definition of drought risk created a
significant tension between the promotion of drought awareness as a regional issue, or
113
as locally specific, defined with relation to a company’s own drought management plans
and assessments of water resources in specific areas.
Frameworks of water supply management were implicated in structuring the contexts in
which the drought played out, including industry concern over public perception. First,
we found evidence that the shift towards a customer-based service industry, with an
emphasis on ensuring the ‘security of supply’ has limited the demand management
options available to water managers. The need for agreed ‘levels of service’ has shaped
managers’ perceptions of what is appropriate, for example ‘draconian’ options such as
standpipes are now discounted outright by water managers, to be avoided at all costs,
and options for reducing pressure in the system are regarded as limited on the grounds
of public perception and health. Drought management strategies now focus on avoiding
disruption to consumers as far as possible in order to maintain agreed levels of supply to
meet demand.
Second, while the experience of diminished demand in 2006 was attributed to a more
coordinated approach between companies with relation to the development of
communication campaigns and hosepipe bans, some water managers suggested that
such measures were inappropriate. Concerns were raised about the cumulative impact
of more frequent or prolonged restrictions on customer perceptions, and about whether
in specifying and defining what was included in the ban, this might also have
inadvertently legitimised activities and technologies not defined.
Third, strategies of managing distribution networks, for example allocating different
sources of water, defining priorities for leakage programmes, and bulk-transfer
agreements, combined to influence the experience of drought in different areas and the
perceived need to manage demand. One implication was that, with the prospect of a
third dry winter ahead, water resource managers may have had to develop recharge
strategies that involved the use of more expensive water sources. Historically negotiated
bulk supply agreements, that defined options for moving water about, influenced the
capacity to alleviate resource pressures and highlighted the problems of inconsistent
messages or restrictions from neighbouring companies where resources came from a
shared source. During the drought some companies had also prioritised the fixing of
114
visible leaks even if this would delay planned programmes of maintenance with the
potential to save more water.
Finally, water management is oriented to ensuring the constant supply of drinking quality
water to meet a certain level of demand, but this did not always equate with consumers’
evaluations of what would make an efficient system. While consumers are consulted
about service level agreements (for example including the likelihood of hosepipe bans)
debates about the need to use pristine drinking water for every purpose are not
incorporated into discussion of mainstream provision; while consumers saw the benefits
of water recycling, for many water managers this was regarded as a costly and
inefficient option.
Building future resilience
At one level the experience of communication campaigns and hosepipe bans during the
drought provided evidence that a more integrated and cooperative approach in which
actors (regulators, companies and consumers) accepted shared responsibility and
worked together to ‘beat the drought’ could work to reduce demand in the short-term.
Yet we also found considerable uncertainty within the water sector about the long term
effectiveness of such approaches in building capacity or in developing local
competencies to deal with new pressures.
Interestingly, while drought itself had little direct impact on underlying orientations
shaping domestic demand, there are ongoing processes of adaptability and change in
‘normal’ everyday practices. Such change occurs in different ways: part of a continual
process of routine re-evaluation and adjustment to changing social situations rather than
explicitly motivated by environmental or economic concerns; the acquisition of new
technologies as part of renovation projects or changing family needs that shift demand in
everyday life; change in household configuration; and through ‘injunctions’ (Kaufmann
1998) related to other forms of provision creating new demands (e.g. the requirement to
rinse bottles for recycling).
Shaping change, however, runs up against considerable difficulty. Debates about the
potential role of rainwater collection or wastewater recycling illustrate some of the
tensions particularly well. At one level, householders questioned the current acceptance
115
of drinking water for all purposes and speculated on how wastewater might be redirected
in some way. Those households with productive orientations were often already
engaged in quite extensive forms of DIY water collection or recycling but others were
thwarted by a lack of institutional support. Options for building resilience through
developing or enhancing such competencies were limited and were often dismissed in
the workshop debates and interviews on account of not being a resilient solution. Even
though water regulators and managers could understand the logic of water recycling,
evaluation of such possibilities were framed in terms of risk assessments and level of
service criteria of mainstream systems rather than on their own terms. For example,
concerns were raised about consumer competencies in maintaining such systems,
uncertain impacts on demand and the robustness of such systems compared to existing
solutions (e.g. effluent recycling).
Existing institutional frameworks appear to limit the extent to which alternative forms of
provision are seriously debated (cf. Subak 2000; del Moral Ituarte and Giansante 2000).
Achieving adaptive co-management in practice will require innovative approaches that
challenge and transcend conventional definitions and boundaries of supply and demand
management embedded in current institutional frameworks. There is considerable
scope for identifying the diverse routes through which households with very different
water using orientations might change their water use (cf. Sofoulis 2006), for
encouraging debate about water as ‘fit for purpose’ rather than general use, and for
exploring institutional support to build competences in innovation at the level of the
household. Indeed, innovation at the level of everyday practice is often delimited by the
bigger water system that defines what is efficient and rational, as much as by any self-
determined effort by individual householders.
The analysis of drought and the intervention of the hosepipe ban into people’s lives acts
as a useful disruption through which to evaluate the scope for adaptation and
persistence in demand. Restrictions on water use imposed at time of drought may
produce the immediate response of diminished demand, but assessing the temporary
effects of such disruption has not been our primary consideration here. Our emphasis in
this project has been to use the disruption of drought to understand the dynamics of
normal, routine and habitualised consumption practices with a view to informing debate
116
about the possibilities of long-term change in the social contexts and everyday cultures
that underpin water use.
Given our focus on the long term possibilities for adaptation in demand there is much we
have not covered in this report. For example, during the drought and in discussions at
project workshops we saw an argument emerging about the need for continued
investment in large scale engineering solutions (e.g. desalination and new reservoirs)
alongside appeals for consumers to save water. While current framings of water policy
emphasise the need for a balancing of demand and supply side management through a
‘twin-track’ approach, there are still persistent questions about where the limits to
different demand or supply options lie. Debates about long-term resource development
inevitably run the risk of sending a contradictory message to consumers that problems of
demand can be alleviated through a supply fix. Much is being done by the water
industry to promote the idea of resource scarcity as a joint problem of consumers and
providers to be alleviated through collaborative effort. Yet the current focus on
campaigns directed to change consumer behaviour or on the development of large-scale
engineering projects still positions demand and supply management as largely separate
fields – i.e. the domain of individual consumers or engineers.
Our research suggests that building resilience in water supply and facilitating adaptation
in demand will require further investigation of the intersections and multiple points of
intervention that exist between systems of provision and everyday practice. Sustainable
water management in the face of intensifying resource scarcity is neither restricted to the
promotion of change in individual behaviour (e.g. through the short sharp shock of
restrictions) nor is it dependent on large scale engineering solutions. Our research
suggests that a variety of ‘middle range’ opportunities (i.e. those which engage
consumers and providers in the co-management of demand) exist but that these may be
detracted from by the current policy framing of ‘twin-track’ approaches, which still sees
demand and supply management as complementary but largely separate domains.
A starting point for identifying middle range opportunities for adaptation depends on
viewing demand as a product of systems rather than individuals. With regard to different
practices (e.g. showering, gardening, laundering, etc.) this might involve identifying and
analysing the array of different interest groups involved in sustaining specific consumer
117
orientations and obligations. While current policy framings of ‘twin-track’ do not actively
discourage such possibilities, those strategies fixated on individual consumers can act to
obscure the multiple points at which opportunities for change are constructed. In
addition aggregate measures focused on whole populations or areas can fail to engage
on a local level or with the social contexts in which multiple orientations to water
consumption emerge.
In summary, our findings point to the need for a more developed and balanced
interpretation of the water consumer not only as a customer valuing water as an
economic resource, or as a profligate waster, but as a wider member of society with
different valuations of water related to work, leisure and home life. Therefore the
challenge of demand management seems not so much to lie in overcoming barriers in
consumer perception. Our results suggest that consumers are in fact knowledgeable
agents that have an appreciation of the difficulties managers face and of their joint roles
in alleviating water problems. Rather, there is a need to facilitate collective
competencies and capacities for change by engaging consumers in a meaningful and
practical way in sustainable water management.
Implications
From our results we draw four sets of implications for research and policy on water
demand:
a) Continued research to understand the diversity of everyday practice
The project has identified a continued and urgent need for further ‘thick’ analysis of
everyday practice that goes beyond the representation of the average consumer in order
to understand the different patterns of orientations to water use as well as future
trajectories. Such analysis will give the industry a more accurate understanding of
when, where and for which households particular interventions (e.g. metering or
communication campaigns) will be effective, as well as help in opening up the
possibilities for alternative forms of intervention. Thick analysis of this kind might
involve, for example, two substantive strands of research:
� Linking the in-depth qualitative analysis of everyday practices to large-scale
surveys of consumer practice and to measurements of actual patterns of water
118
consumption (based on current micro-component consumption monitors) to
identify the variation within ‘average’ water use
� Evaluation of how micro-component metering and innovative tariff structures
might be used to understand the diversity of everyday practices and variation in
consumer adaptation (rather than the just average savings).
b) Developing diversified demand management strategies.
Demand management strategies formulated at an aggregated level fail to engage with
the diversity of everyday practices in which water is implicated. Further engagement in
how more sophisticated and targeted demand management strategies could be
designed that are more sensitive to the variable contexts of everyday living and to
different social orientations of households is needed. Two possible directions for such a
programme of research would be:
� Detailed investigation of specific household domains in which environmentally
significant practices are concentrated (e.g. kitchens, bathrooms, gardens). For
example, focused work on gardening practices would help to further refine
understandings of social orientations to outdoor life and how these are multiply
structured (e.g. through informal networks, gardening industries, water
institutions, public authorities, media, etc.). This in turn would inform debate
about the multiple channels for facilitating change.
� Further engagement with international research on water consumption,
especially that being undertaken in countries facing acute resource shortages
and where strategies for more creative and diversified demand management are
already being tested (e.g. Australia). Cross-cultural comparative research of this
sort would be of considerable benefit in understanding the constitution of ‘normal’
consumption in different countries and the role of water sector strategies in
shaping demand. This will allow for the identification of similarities and
differences in consumer orientation and institutional framings and inform debate
about convergence in practices and the cultural transferability of innovative
demand management practice.
c) Opening-up the socio-technical structuring of demand.
Obligations to use water do not only relate to individual needs but are framed by wider
social, institutional and technical contexts. This implies the need for demand managers
119
to engage in a more radical debate about the shifting conventions of normal or legitimate
consumption, their own role in structuring these, and the possibilities for alternative
forms of provision. Such debate might be structured along the following lines:
� Opening-up questions about the legitimacy of the huge variety of social practices
through which domestic water is consumed and how, if at all, these might be
regulated, monitored, paid for, or provided for differently. While the hosepipe ban
turned the spotlight back on the legitimacy of some gardening practices and
technologies, this was only partial and obscured the negotiability of many
environmentally significant indoor practices.
� Current regulatory structures and management frameworks for demand need
further exploration in relation to how they inhibit the scope for innovative forms of
water provision more adaptable to changing local situations, to different user
orientations or competencies or changing climatic conditions. For example, how
do existing risk-based assessments inhibit or support water recycling initiatives
implemented at different scales, and how do such frameworks for assessment
contribute to future resilience in the face of more acute water scarcity?
In relation both to opening up debate about legitimate consumption practice and current
institutional frameworks, we would point to the historical fluidity of demand and supply,
and the likely need for ongoing adaptation in meanings of normal consumption and
provision in the context of future scarcity.
d) Evaluating resilience across scales of practice.
There is a continued need to encourage debate between different players, including
academics, the water industry, government, regulators, and through public consultation,
in order to explore possibilities for more radical approaches to building future resilience
across different scales of practice. There are numerous contexts in which such
engagement is relevant.
� First we have seen questions emerge about the scale at which resilient water
systems are to evaluated and strategically managed. Reviewing how both
consumers and providers value different solutions (e.g. recycling options) is
important not only with relation to public perception of the need to save water but
in terms of how people understand and attribute responsibility for water
management. There is also a need to understand how regional and local
120
assessments of resilient demand management solutions can be reconciled to
avoid the possibility of contradictions and potential inequalities in service.
� Second, we have seen the continued dialogue about how financial benefits for
companies are to be balanced with environmental issues of water quality and
maintaining river flows at a regional level. This is not a new debate, but is one
that will take on new meanings and dimensions in relation to emerging resource
scarcities and likely require the revaluation of exiting operational requirements
(e.g. tightening of headroom requirements or going beyond economic levels of
leakage).
� Third, there is a need to understand the inequities that might emerge through
different strategies, for example, how the requirement for greater
interconnectivity and for reallocation of shared resources might generate new
tiers of entitlement and forms of inequity. Again such questions are not new, but
they take on greater urgency with relation to resource-pressed areas such as the
south east, reinforcing the need to assess resource sharing both as a
commercial opportunity for individual companies and as a strategy for building
regional resilience.
Finally, this project emerged from, has benefited from, and contributed to, ongoing
dialogue between the research community (including both social science and
engineering) and the water sector. The workshop format that we have developed,
building on the Traces of Water series, created a context for ongoing conversation,
clarification, argument and reflection. We strongly recommend that such processes are
built into all future projects and that a platform for continued industry-academia and
interdisciplinary debate be enabled. This is crucial if workable and sustainable solutions
to the challenges of managing demand in the context of future water scarcity are to be
realised.
121
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Nineteenth-Century London, in F.Trentmann (Ed.) The Making of the Consumer:
Knowledge, Power and Identity in the Modern World. Oxford and New York, Berg: pp53-
79.
UKWIR (2005) Critical review of relevant research concerning the effects of charging
and collection methods on water demand, different customers groups and debt, UKWIR
Report Ref. No. 05/CU/02/1, UK Water Industry Research, London.
UKWIR/Entec (2003) Quantifying the Savings, Costs and Benefits of Water Efficiency,
Report No. 03/WR/25/1, UKWIR, London.
Van Vliet, B., H. Chappells and E. Shove (2005) Infrastructures of Consumption:
Environmental Innovation in the Utility Industries, London, Earthscan.
Waterwise (2007a) Lifting hosepipe bans, Waterwise urges consumers to continue to be
water efficient; 18 January 2007, press release.
Waterwise (2007b) Water Efficiency Programmes: Best Practice Guide, draft version:
http://www.waterwise.org.uk/reducing_water_wastage_in_the_uk/research/briefings__re
ports.html
Webb, T. (2007) ‘The fine line we walk on water’ The Independent, 04 June 2006
Wilk, R. (2002) ‘Consumption, human needs, and global environmental change’, Global
Environmental Change, 12(1): 5-13.
Winterman, D. (2006) What happened to the drought? BBC News Magazine, 5 October:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/5400054.stm
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Websites and other resources
Anglian Water: http://www.anglianwater.co.uk/
CIWEM: http://www.ciwem.org/
Consumer Council for Water: http://www.ccwater.org.uk/index.php
Defra: http://www.defra.gov.uk/ENVIRONMENT/water/resources/index.htm
Environment Agency: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/waterres/
Essex and Suffolk Water: http://www.eswater.co.uk/
Ofwat: http://www.ofwat.gov.uk/aptrix/ofwat/publish.nsf/Content/WaterResources
South East Water: http://www.southeastwater.co.uk/
Three Valleys Water: http://www.3valleys.co.uk/
UK Resilience: http://www.ukresilience.info/latest/drought.aspx
UKWIR: http://www.ukwir.org/site/web/content/home
Water in the Southeast (previously ‘Beat the Drought’ website):
http://www.waterinthesoutheast.com/
Water UK: http://www.water.org.uk/
Waterwise: http://www.waterwise.org.uk/
i
APPENDIX A: Household sample and interview schedule
The project started in July 2006 when drought conditions were affecting households
across the south east of England. The household sample was recruited by participating
water companies, each aiming to select 6 similar households to generate a sample of
30. Subsequently, one water company had to withdraw from the process due to other
pressures. Letters were sent to a selection of households residing within these
companies’ jurisdictions outlining the details of the project and asking households
meeting the selection criteria to participate (a small incentive was offered by the
companies to participating households). In total 22 households were found that were
willing to participate in the study. Householders were interviewed between July and
August 2006. Diaries were completed over the summer and returned in October 2006.
Following discussion with members of the project steering group, the aim was to select
household that were:
a) not metered, on the basis that water companies knew relatively little about the
consumption practices of this group while they account for more than 50% of UK
demand;
b) consisted of a family of 4 occupying a semi-detached house with 3 bedrooms, a
garden and driveway (on the basis that these would be relatively high water
users of different ages engaged in a diversity of practices both indoors and
outdoors).
The ‘unmetered’ criterion was met in all but one household where a meter had recently
been installed. Because water companies did not always have access to information on
household composition or house type, and due to the difficulties of recruiting families
within the tight project timescale, it was not always possible to meet the second set of
criteria. As our aim was to develop an in-depth understanding of diversity, variation and
dynamics in household practices rather than to elucidate proportionate relationships
between households this was not considered a significant limitation of the study (cf.
Crouch and McKenzie 2006). Details of the composition of each participating household
are given in the table below.
ii
Household
Details
1 Family of four, including mother, father and two teenage daughters in a semi-detached two bedroom home, garden and two cars.
2 Family of two, with two student lodgers, in a semi detached house with three bedrooms, garden and one car.
3 Family of four, mother, father and two daughters in late teens/early twenties, in semi-detached three bedroom home with large garden and two cars.
4 Family of four, mother, father and two teenage sons, in semi-detached house with large garden and car.
5 Family of four, mother, father, teenage daughter and young son in semi-detached house with three bedrooms, garden and car.
6 Family of two, father and grown-up son, in semi-detached house with two bedrooms, garden and two cars.
7 Family of two, retired couple in first floor rented apartment with two bedrooms, small balcony and one car.
8 Family of one, elderly lady in detached three bedroom house, with large garden and one car.
9 Family of four, mother, father and two teenage children, in semi detached house with three bedrooms, garden and two cars.
10 Family of two, retired couple, in bungalow with garden, car and recently metered.
11 Family of two, retired couple, in bungalow with garden, and car. 12 Family of two, retired couple, in semi-detached house, with
garden and car. 13 Family of two, young couple, in first floor rented apartment, two
cars, no garden. 14 Family of five, mother, father and three young children (under 10)
in semi-detached house, with garden and two cars. 15 Family of three, single father with two young children, in terraced
house with small garden and car. 16 Family of three, mother, father and daughter (in twenties) in large
detached house, with large garden and three cars. 17 Family of four, mother, father and two young children in semi-
detached house with three bedrooms, garden and two cars. 18 Family of three, mother, father and young son, in semi-detached
house with three bedrooms, garden and car. 19 Family of four, mother, father and two young children in semi-
detached house with three bedrooms, with garden and two cars. 20 Family of four, mother, father, two teenage children in semi-
detached house with three bedrooms, and garden. 21 Family of four, single father and three teenage sons in semi-
detached house with garden and two cars. 22 Family of four, mother, father and two young children in semi-
detached house with garden and two cars.
iii
The format of the interviews was semi-structured, each lasting between 1 to 1.5 hours.
This format allowed for in-depth discussion of practices and their dynamics deemed
significant by households. Interviewing informants in their homes helped to develop a
greater degree of reflection about daily practices and enabled the interviewer to gain an
informed understanding of the settings in which practices and adaptations took place,
thus increasing “the likelihood of spontaneously encountering important moments in the
in the ordinary events of consumers daily lives and of experiencing revelatory incidents”
(Arnould and Wallendorf 1994). By conducting interviews during the height of the
drought and when restrictions were in force in many areas we expected to find
disruptions to ‘ordinary daily life’ and be able to evaluate the extent to which the drought
had revealed the scope for adaptation or the breaking of routines.
Semi-structured interviews were organised around the following themes:
Themes for household interviews
1. Overview of daily water using practices and routines
2. Detailed focus on key water uses: showering, bathing, toilet flushing,
dishwashing, gardening; including frequency, duration, rationale, etc.
3. Variations in practices between household members and changes over
time
4. Changing configurations of technologies and practices
5. Understandings of water scarcity, and experiences of drought
6. Changing practices with relation to current restrictions
7. Influence of intermediaries on perceptions and practices (media, water
companies, friends, family, retailers, local authorities, other users, etc.)
8. Meanings and values of water; including rights and responsibilities
9. Relative flexibility and resilience of certain water practices
10. Shifting contexts of water use related to changing lifestyles (work, leisure,
etc.)
11. Thoughts on water futures: coping strategies and options (metering,
desalination, leakage, recycling, water efficiency, etc.)
iv
Diaries can allow for a deeper degree of reflection from participants and to enable
respondents to evaluate the dynamics of a situation hence our decision to use such
methods. There were three objectives of the water diaries.
a) to allow us to track changes in water use by households over the summer
months
b) to give households more time to reflect on what they do with water and how this
might vary on different days (typical and non-typical)
c) to record household experiences of the 2006 drought as it happens and how
different events or actors influenced the ways they thought about and used
water.
In total 12 diaries were completed by householders, other respondents reporting that
they had not had the time to complete these or believed they had little information to add
beyond the initial interview.
v
APPENDIX B: Manager sample and interview schedule
Four water companies were involved in the study: Anglian Water, Essex and Suffolk
Water, South East Water, and Three Valleys Water. We had expected to interview
managers at a fifth company, Folkestone and Dover Water (part of the Veolia group), but
these were unfortunately unable to participate within the time constraints of the project.
However, managers at Three Valleys Water (also part of the Veolia group) were able to
provide some details of the drought situation and responses within the Folkestone and
Dover supply area. Representatives of each company were members of the project
steering group. These representatives helped to identify relevant managers within their
companies, with relation to drought and demand management responsibilities. An
overview of each company is given below:
WATER COMPANY
OVERVIEW
Anglian Water
The Anglian region is one of the driest in the country,
with around half the national average rainfall for
England and Wales. Anglian Water provides water
services to an area of 22,000km2. Much of the area is
controlled by a well interconnected network, although
parts of rural Norfolk have remained isolated and rely on
single source works. Leakage rates are some of the
lowest in the UK. The company supplies water to 4.2
million people. Around 58% of Anglian’s customers now
pay for water by the meter, compared to 23% on
average across the UK. Since 1989 the number of
customers supplied in the region has increased by
300,000, with on average 20,000 new properties
connected each year, and further significant demand
growth is expected.
Essex and Suffolk Water
ESW operates in two distinct geographical areas each
obtaining their water independently. Essex is the driest
county in the UK, receiving only 50% of average annual
vi
rainfall in a normal year. It is also one of the most
dynamic counties in terms of population and demand
growth, with an 18% growth in population since the
1960s. In dry years, only half the water supplied in the
Essex area comes from within the county, with the
county dependent on transfers from Norfolk via the Ely-
Ouse to Essex Transfer Scheme. Within the county the
system is fully integrated with a high level of flexibility in
moving water around the zone. In Suffolk there are no
large pumped storage reservoirs with dependency on
river sources and boreholes serving more discrete
zones. The company has the lowest leakage levels in
the country. At present 30% of customers in Essex and
50% of customers in Suffolk are metered.
South East Water
South East Water covers an area of 3,607km2 in Kent,
Sussex, Surrey, Berkshire and Hampshire, and supplies
water services to approximately 1.4 million customers in
two discrete regions (northern and southern).
Three Valleys Water
TVM supply water to approximately 2.9 million
customers in parts of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire,
Essex, Hertfordshire, Surrey and some of the London
Boroughs. Around 60% of TVM’s water is abstracted
from groundwater wells and boreholes, the remaining
40% from surface water.
Selected managers from Anglian Water, Essex and Suffolk Water and South East Water
were interviewed during July and August 2006 as they were coping with the drought
situation as it emerged in their areas. Follow-up telephone interviews were conducted in
November 2006 and June 2007 to assess how the situation had changed. It was not
possible to complete interviews with managers at Three Valleys Water until November
2006. A number of the managers interviewed also participated at project workshops.
Interviews were semi-structured to allow for managers to identify relevant concerns and
issues, and to respond to the changing situation as it developed. This dimension of the
vii
project focused on how drought was defined and managed locally, and how responses
reflected different local understandings of risk and response. An in-depth interviewing
strategy again reflected a desire to understand the complexities and dynamics of
drought and demand management rather than to directly compare experiences,
performance or strategies across companies. A list of key themes addressed in the
interviews and used to guide discussions is given below:
Themes for water managers
1. Overview of organisational structure, configuration of water systems;
issues of connectivity or inflexibility, etc.
2. Assessment of drought risk; with relation to regional resource situation,
demand hotspots, supply pressure points, leakage, etc.
3. Overview and timeline of drought management and development
4. Details of demand management strategies enacted; rationale,
prioritization, usages and users targeted, and responses of consumers
5. Imagining the future; emerging pressures, resilience planning, relative
reliance on demand or supply management
Activities of resource management teams and the flexibilities afforded them clearly relate
to regional and national regulation and governance. In February 2007, further telephone
interviews were conducted with representatives of the three main regulatory bodies
(Environment Agency, Consumer Council for Water, Ofwat), and with policy experts at
DEFRA. These helped to define the wider institutional and political contexts that defined
drought risk assessment in 2006, the strategies of adaptation prioritised, and the
dominant directions of future resilience planning in the water sector. Regional
representatives of the Environment Agency’s Southern and Eastern regions
subsequently took part in telephone interviews in June 2007. These interviews were
further used to clarify the interactions between different local contexts in defining drought
and wider regional and national priorities.