Low water levels/cheshire

[tigertom]

Can any one tell me why in some parts of cheshire water levels on lakes that are fed by the water table level have fell by up to 4 to 5ft last few years and why water table level is falling, yet lakes fed by streams and ditches are fine and will these levels rise again at some point THANK YOU
MIKE

[The Woodman]

There are two main reasons that the water table is lower. Firstly, that it is not being topped up by natural means - less rainfall on the ground above. Secondly, demands on the water in the underground resource. Abstraction by borehole pumping would be the most likely cause.

The demand for water these days is ever increasing. Industry and agriculture use huge amounts drawn directly from open sources e.g. rivers and from underground.

The Environment Agency licence abstraction and should be monitoring aquifer levels in your area. There's a bit about it here.... Environment Agency - Identifying groundwater and groundwater dependant waters and ecosystems

If you wanted specific advice, a call to the EA area office at Richard Fairclough House in Warrington should provide you with what you need. 0370 8506506

[tigertom]

Thanks for your reply. Water abstraction is to blame for low water on these lakes but as they are not natural lakes all are flooded sand and pits and a quarry the EA are not to concerned it seems, as none of the other lakes in cheshire are affected as these are not dependent on ground water

[Paul mabbott]

We in Yorkshire have very low levels of water in rivers, lakes and reservoirs - the latter, obviously lose much water by abstraction but none of them are being topped up by natural means. It's been an odd year or two - people will say we've had wet summers &c but, in fcat, the actual precipitation has been quite low - enough to annoy anyone wanting to have a picnic but nothing like enough to fill up lakes. Spring rainfall has been very low and we've had snow in the winters which always looks more impressive than rain but doesn't contribute so much to the waterways ....
So, reducing absraction will help but basically this is a matter of climate change with altered weather patterns - and needs a much greater response ...

[tigertom]

Just looked at dee weaver and dane levels the dee about normal for this time of year weaver lower end of normal summer levels and the dane is the same it seems only lakes that are not natural are the ones affected, though I must say I have only looked at three natural lake and levels ok on these, the ones with low levels are all flooded sand gravel pits or quarrys strange how only these seem have the problems one has lost about 3ft or more since January, thank for your in put so far going to do bit more research and have a look at few more of the natural lakes there is a lot of them in cheshire
THANKS MIKE