Kielder Water

Kielder Water is a large man-made reservoir in Northumberland in North East England. It is the largest artificial lake in the United Kingdom by capacity of water (second-largest by area) and it is surrounded by Kielder Forest, one of the biggest man-made woodlands in Europe. The scheme was planned in the late 1960s to satisfy an expected rise in demand for water to support a booming UK industrial economy. But the decline of traditional heavy industry, together with more water-efficient industrial processes and better control of water supply leakage, served to undermine the original justification for the reservoir and the government-funded project has been criticised as a white elephant. Kielder Water is owned by Northumbrian Water, and holds 200 gigalitres (44 billion imperial gallons), making it the largest artificial reservoir in the UK by capacity (Rutland Water is the largest by surface area). It has a 27.5-mile (44.3 km) shoreline, is 24.6 miles (39.6 km) from the sea, and has a maximum depth of 52 metres (170 ft).