ABSTRACT
Droughts are not sudden emergencies with little or no warning, as is often the case with such hazards as floods, and in general they can be defined only when they are well underway. The population needs water to arrest its thirst and to water its crops, but present-day inhabitants of the British Isles also require water on a vast and complex scale to operate effectively the intricate machinery of a highly technological society. The responses of different water sources, rivers, ground water, and reservoirs to a drought are quite different and not surprisingly the response to drought differs over the country. Droughts cannot be prevented from occurring and the major protection against them involves the storage of water either underground in groundwater reserves or in surface reservoirs. During drought periods woods and heathland are susceptible to fire damage often caused by carelessly thrown matches or by sunlight focused through broken glass.
