Could England and Wales ever run out of water?

Last month in England was the driest July since records began almost two centuries ago. How concerned should we be?

Half of England and all of Wales are officially in drought. But what does this mean and could taps eventually run dry?

• The headline of this article was amended on 7 August 2026 to refer to England and Wales, rather than the UK. Also, the average usage of 139 litres of water a day is for people in England and Wales, not in the UK as stated in an earlier version; and the 47bn kilolitres of water extracted from the environment in 2023 was in England only. Groundwater was added to the list of main sources of water.