[keanb]

Maybe they should stop the massive increase in population if it cannot be sustained by the resources in the island.

[ben_w]

"if" is doing the heavy lifting there.

The privatised water companies chose to stop building additional reservoir capacity. From what I've read, the UK pipes currently leak about the same percentage of the water going through them, as the percentage by which the population went up since privatisation.

It's money and incentives, not a property of the geography.