Dublin water supply could run out in 70 days

According to Irish Water, the water supply in Dublin could fail after 70 days. The current water supply is under the threat from the heatwave.

Gerry Grant, Managing Director of Irish Water, said that water levels in the capital’s reservoirs were still very low and further conservation measures may be needed, though there has been rainfall recently.

In Poulaphouca, which is the reservoir in Co Wicklow, Mr Giant had mentioned that “we had 150 days of storage” since May by revealing the results of monitoring of the water levels among lake, river and reservoir levels. However, due to the drought caused by the heatwave, there were only about 70 days of usable water left for the Greater Dublin Area, according to Irish Water.

He added, “We used 80 days of that storage in 83 days. In other words, almost nothing was contributed to the storage. It also depends on how dry the autumn is.”

In a statement established by Irish Water, even with normal rainfall levels, it is important to minimize usage to ensure that the storage levels are fully restored during the coming winter, so that the position is as secure as possible going into 2019. The drought experienced this summer has underlined the risk to the Dublin region water supply and the need for much greater resilience to cope with this type of climatic event. The water levels in other reservoirs will be determined by future weather conditions. Therefore, we better conserve the water resource so as to prevent the threat of drought.