Reader's Blog: Time to audit our water reserves

How much do we know about water beneath our feet? Parts of Ireland had bouts of parching in 2018. Soil, on being dug up, was found to have become dust.

This was visible beneath some inches of wet topsoil even after falls of rain. In some places, water springs continued to irrigate fields but didn’t reach waterways. Rivers showed the effect of drought. Alongside energy use we have to look at water availability. The drought indications mentioned here refer to catchments of tributaries of the Suir and Shannon. There were drought conditions across the mid-West, which corresponds to the Parteen Basin. In late 2018, several weeks of rain only began to bring equilibrium. We have to become more attentive to our environment and ecology. We cannot take these for granted anymore.