For years, water scarcity and associated infrastructure sat comfortably in the ‘future problem’ drawer, filed somewhere between melting ice caps and long-term pension liabilities. That fiction has expired. Today, 2.2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water. Another 1.7 billion rely on supplies that are not reliably protected from contamination. Even countries that consider themselves water rich, the UK included, are discovering that abundance on paper does not survive contact with ageing pipes, ...