Guernsey's reservoir levels continue to fall

Thursday, 27 August 2026 07:25

“To maintain levels at St Saviour's Reservoir, we've transferred 360 million litres of water from St Andrew’s Reservoir to there – and you can see the impact this has had.”

Guernsey Water say despite recent rainfall, supplies remain under pressure.

Guernsey Water say recent rainfall has provided a "short-term boost" to collection, but reservoir levels remain low after the dry, hot summer.

The utility is urging islanders to continue being mindful of their water use and reduce consumption where possible.

Rainfall on Wednesday last week (19 August) totalled 6mm, making it the wettest day since 1 June and bringing more rain than was recorded during the whole of July.

However, that has not reversed the overall dry trend.

Reservoirs are currently 74.4% full and continue to fall by around 1.5% - 2% each week.

Water Quality Risk Manager Daffyd Griffiths says 68.4 million more litres were used than collected last week.

"The rain we've seen recently has certainly helped and we're always pleased to see water flowing into our reservoirs.

"However, as we’d expect for this time of year we're still using substantially more water than we're collecting.

"The figures tell the story.

"Last week islanders used more than 92 million litres of water, we collected just 24 million litres – much better than in previous weeks, but still far short of what is needed.

"That gap continues to reduce our stored reserves and it’s that deficit we can all influence by using less water. Small actions repeated thousands of times add up and make a difference. We would encourage everyone to continue taking sensible steps to reduce water use wherever possible."

Guernsey Water is not imposing a hosepipe ban, as other places in the UK have this summer.

Customers are asked to take shorter showers, delay car washing and reuse water when possible for tasks like watering the garden.