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FOR most of 2023, I have been immersing myself in all things river-related for ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ‘s Save Britain’s Rivers campaign. I have written about sewage pollution, the state of the country’s river-monitoring systems and the fact that hundreds of tonnes of oxygen had to be pumped into the Thames last summer to prevent the river’s fish from dying.

The topic was completely new to me. My background isn’t in environmental science: I studied neuroscience at university and, until this year, had largely covered biomedical stories.

I also wasn’t someone who particularly cared about the environment. OK, I did care about the environment, but I didn’t care in the same way that many of my colleagues and I am sure many of you do. I still don’t think too much about whether I can recycle a crisp packet or not. I don’t help out in my local community garden or avoid plastic packaging. Am I even allowed to admit this?

One thing I never thought about before this year was the plight of rivers. I grew up in London. I know one river. It’s big and beautiful and it’s called the Thames. What else is there to know? Feargal Sharkey, the former lead vocalist of The Undertones turned river-activist, says there is too much sewage being released into UK rivers. So what? I don’t swim in them. There are bigger issues in the world.

But this year, my eyes have been opened. Rivers are a vital ecosystem that we are completely neglecting, and there is one aspect of this topic that I find particularly alarming – how much water we all use without thinking.

I don’t think I really understood that so much of our drinking water comes from rivers. I didn’t know that when water companies enforce hosepipe bans, they are partly doing so because they can’t remove any more water from a river without causing severe environmental damage.

We use a lot of water. In England, households use . As a point of comparison, in Denmark, . According to the UK National Infrastructure Commission, England will need an additional due to climate change and the country’s rising population.

But we currently don’t have the infrastructure to meet this demand. No new reservoirs have been built in the UK for . Around 20 per cent of the public water supply .

To keep up with demand, at least in the short term, water firms largely plan to take even more water from our rivers. But this can be ecologically devastating and is generally not a sustainable option. To help ease pressure on the system, the UK government wants people to cut the amount of water they use each day to 110 litres by 2050.

This may be achieved in part if we all start buying the most water-efficient toilets and sinks, which the government hopes to encourage by . But beyond plans made by water firms and the government, we all need a major shift in how we view water.

We take water for granted. I have multiple baths a week. A full bath . Are we all washing our dishes in the most efficient way? Is there a better way to water our gardens?

This is important. Droughts are becoming more common in the UK. If we don’t ask these questions today, we may be forced to take far more drastic action later. It has already happened elsewhere: in 2018, residents of Cape Town, South Africa, were limited to just .

We need new reservoirs. We need water firms to cut their water leakage rates. But we also need to stop thinking of water as cheap. We don’t have an unlimited supply.

Jason Arunn Murugesu is a reporter at ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ @ajmurugesu