Domestic Water Demand During Droughts in Temperate Climates: Synthesising Evidence for an Integrated Framework

In the upcoming years, as the population is growing and ageing, as lifestyle changes create the need for more water and as fewer people live in each household, the UK water sector will have to deal with challenges in the provision of adequate water services. Unless critical action is taken, every area in the UK may face a supply-demand gap by the 2080s. Extreme weather events and variations that alter drought and flood frequency add to these pressures. However, little evidence is available about householders’ response to drought and there are few if any studies incorporating this evidence into models of demand forecasting. The present work lays the groundwork for modelling domestic water demand response under drought conditions in temperate climates. After discussing the current literature on estimating and forecasting domestic water consumption under both ‘normal’ and drought conditions, this paper identifies the limited ability of current domestic demand forecasting techniques to include the many different and evolving factors affecting domestic consumption and it stresses the need for the inclusion of inter and intra household factors as well as water use practices in future demand forecasting models

INDEMNITY FOR COMPANIES ADVERSELY AFFECTED BY ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION CHANGES

The problem addressed by this paper is the conditions under which the government may wish to indemnify firms for losses suffered when environmental regulations are revised. Larger firms are likely to be in a better competitive position than smaller firms when environmental standards are raised. Financial risks discourage firms from investing in environmental capital unless some of the cost is shared by the public. Not having a compensation program will slow compliance with new regulations and make markets less competitive. The examples o f TRIS and the herbicides 2,4,5-T and Silvex are described. Copyright 1986 by The Policy Studies Organization.

Liquid application method for time-resolved analyses by serial synchrotron crystallography

We introduce a liquid application method for time-resolved analyses (LAMA), an in situ mixing approach for serial crystallography. Picoliter-sized droplets are shot onto chip-mounted protein crystals, achieving near-full ligand occupancy within theoretical diffusion times. We demonstrate proof-of-principle binding of GlcNac to lysozyme, and resolve glucose binding and subsequent ring opening in a time-resolved study of xylose isomerase