England is running dry. Not in a vague, distant-future sort of way, but now – this year, this summer. The Government has this week warned of a “nationally significant” water shortfall. Experts have warned it could last until mid-autumn, possibly longer.

Water companies are reaching for the familiar levers: hosepipe bans, earnest adverts about taking shorter showers, and polite pleas for restraint. And while influencing consumer habits to reduce water use is important, you cannot fix a drought crisis at a systemic level with slogans and shower times.

The reality is that the solution begins not in our homes, but in the uplands – the moors, hills and peat bogs that supply 70% of the nation’s drinking water. From the wild tops of Yorkshire and Cumbria to the hills of Lancashire and Greater Manchester, these catchments can act as natural water banks, releasing their stores slowly into rivers and man-made reservoirs. Yet climate change has rewritten the seasons with wetter winters and bone-dry springs. This year’s spring, among the driest ever recorded, has left reservoirs at perilously low levels.

The consequences are very real with the drought hitting many sectors across the country. Farmers are struggling to grow crops and feed livestock and higher numbers of fish die-offs are being reported by anglers and others who use England’s rivers. And each year, the changing weather pattern returns with greater force. Hoping for a wet August is no longer a strategy.

What’s needed is not just crisis management, but a wholesale effort to restore the land at the top of catchments. Healthy peatlands act as natural sponges, soaking up winter rain and releasing it slowly throughout the year. Yet too many remain in a state of degradation. The same goes for clough woodlands, the collection of native broadleaf trees that once climbed up the steep sides ravines and cloaked the moorland slopes, but were lost due to historic deforestation.

Reviving these habitats is not romantic nostalgia, but hard-headed infrastructure investment crucial for anybody concerned with ensuring we have a sustainable water system. They improve water quality, provide flood protection to communities by slowing run-off during heavy rainfall, store huge amounts of carbon and help make our water supplies more resilient to drought.

Some water companies have recognised this, funding peatland restoration and the re-creation of clough woodlands with promising results. But action is still not at the level needed. Scaling this up should be as much a priority as building new reservoirs and fixing leaks in the water systems.

If we fail to act upstream, we will keep paying the price downstream – with every spring and summer a little drier, every hosepipe ban a little longer and our green and pleasant land a little less green.

Image credit: Paul Hudson / BBC Look North