As we head into World Water Week — August 24-28 — across the UK, headlines continue to be dominated by reports of drought across swathes of the country, millions are living under hose pipe bans and many of us are struggling with heatwaves.
A combination of spiralling water use, rising populations and very little rain prompted the Environment Agency to issue stark warnings that England faces a 5bn litres a day shortfall in our public water supply by 2055, unless we take urgent action.[i] And on August 11, the National Drought Group announced that the current water shortfall situation in England was a ‘nationally significant incident’.
Behaviour change is our most powerful tool
The way we use water in the UK has changed dramatically in the past half-century. In 1976, the nation was gripped by a heatwave and drought so severe that standpipes were rolled out onto the streets and homes across the country were forced to ration their water. It was an era when the inconvenience of not being able to bathe or flush freely brought a powerful, if temporary, shift in public behaviour.
Fast forward to 1985 – less than a decade after the crisis – and domestic water use per person had plummeted to its lowest recorded level. But since then, we’ve quietly reversed the trend. Today, average daily consumption has surged by 70%, from around 85 litres per person to around 147 litres in 2024. With the UK population also growing by nearly 12 million since 1976, the total demand for water has ballooned.
The question is: what drove the initial drop in the late 1970s and early 1980s? We can’t credit technology. Efficient washing machines and dishwashers didn’t begin to make a dent in water use until the 1990s, and their widespread adoption only took off in the mid-90s. What changed, quite simply, was people’s behaviour. Faced with taps running dry and government-enforced restrictions, people adapted. They used less water. They reused more. They thought twice before turning on the tap.
And then, as quickly as the crisis passed, so too did the urgency. Our collective memory is short. Without the pressure of a national emergency, old habits returned and with them, higher consumption.
This isn’t about demonising the daily shower, it’s about recognising that, despite the incredible technological progress we’ve made, behaviour remains the most powerful and the most fragile – lever we have in the fight to secure our water future.
Complacency is the real danger
Modern appliances have helped – today’s dishwashers and washing machines use more than 50% less water per cycle than their predecessors. But they are no match for a culture that assumes water is unlimited, cheap, and always available. It isn’t. Climate change is intensifying drought risk, while demand continues to climb. Parts of the UK are already facing serious water stress, and projections show the gap between supply and demand widening further without action.
The real danger is complacency. Do we really need another national crisis to jolt us awake? Another summer of standpipes and rationing to remind us just how essential and vulnerable our water supply is?
The rapid drop in UK per‑person water use from 1976 to 1985 stemmed solely from behaviour change – driven by crisis. Today’s modern appliances help, but they cannot substitute for mindful consumption. Smart metres are part of the solution, but smart‑meter uptake remains low – with only about 12% of households having a smart meter fitted in England.
Drought facing the Middle East
The crisis is even more acute beyond Europe. In Iran, President Pezeshkian recently warned that Tehran’s dams may run dry by September or October 2025 amid a 40% rainfall decline over just four months – even as 70% of residents regularly exceed a daily household limit of 130 litres reuters.com. In parts of the Middle East, drought is no longer a future concern – it’s a present catastrophe.
What Britain must learn before the next crisis
It took standpipes and national rationing for past behavioural shifts. Today, we must ask: Does it really take turning off taps to capture our attention?
Behaviour is fragile. Without the pressure of crisis, our former gains quickly unravel.
Technology alone won’t solve it. Appliances and smart meters help – but only if integrated into norms, incentives, and infrastructure (like greywater reuse).
We must act proactively. In the UK, reusing greywater and collecting rainwater could reduce household use to below 80 l/p/d – but regulatory and planning frameworks still prevent adoption at scale.
It’s time for a cultural reset – anchored in design, regulation, education, and collective responsibility. We should not wait until drought forces our hand and we must not let our memories of 1976 slip entirely into history.
We don’t need to live like it’s the 1970s again, but we do need to start thinking like it. At the most basic level, humans only need two to three litres of water a day to survive. The rest – whether it’s 147 litres in the UK, 257 litres in the US, or as little as four litres in parts of Africa – reflects a mixture of convenience, culture, and often, waste.
The path forward isn’t simply more efficient machines – it’s smarter behaviour supported by smarter systems. We need technology not just to save water mechanically, but to help nudge, remind, and incentivise us to change how we use it. Behaviour change isn’t a one-off campaign; it needs to be designed into our homes, our apps, our tariffs and our policies.
Steve Harding is founder and CEO at Showerkap, a pioneering UK climate tech company. Its platform enables businesses to move towards net zero by monitoring and managing water and energy usage in granular detail, using cutting-edge behavioural tools.
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