Record UK rainfall will not prevent water restrictions, experts warn

Southern England faces 'tension' over water supplies if the next few months are dry, leading hydrologists say, as not enough rain has fallen to recharge underground reserves

Despite December's record rainfall, which led to thousands of people being flooded and the highest river levels ever seen in England, water restrictions due to drought could still be imposed in some parts of the country by the summer, say Britain's leading hydrologists.

Because nearly all the rain, from a succession of storms, fell in the north of England where water supplies are largely drawn from rivers and reservoirs, and very little fell in the south where supplies come mainly from underground aquifers, it may only need three months of relatively dry weather to create supply problems for millions of people, said Allan Jenkins, deputy director of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), Britain's leading independent water analysts. That could mean hosepipe bans and other restrictions for the south-east and elsewhere.