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Enough water not enough ideas, says CIS report
Worries about water supplies should not prevent population growth; water infrastructure can grow with a growing population, argues a new report released by The Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) today.
In Droughts and Flooding Rains: Water Provision for a Growing Australia, CIS Researcher Rebecca Gill argues that we have the technology and innovation to ensure that Australia’s water resources can continue to support a growing population.
‘We currently use only 10% of our fresh water reserves. We don’t lack water, we lack ideas about changing our water infrastructure to support a growing population,’ says Rebecca Gill.
‘Australia’s water challenge is not the amount of rainfall but its extreme variability from year to year and decade to decade – as seen in the dry and wet periods of El Niño and La Niña.’
Water supplies can be managed in times of low rainfall or even drought by better utilising our dams and mix of other options such as recycling and desalination.
‘Technological innovations in the last 20 years have given us many options for increasing Australia’s water supply without building more dams.’
Options for improving our current water usage include:
- Reducing water leakage across the system: water loss made up 8% of all water used in Sydney in 2007–08
- Improving water saving technology in new homes: In the last three decades, Sydney has actually reduced its water demand at the same time as growing by 1.3 million people.
- Reusing and recycling water for drinking and non-drinking purposes.
- Desalination could provide up to 49% of our water needs.
Along with new water saving initiatives and new technologies, scarcity pricing could be introduced in times of low dam levels as this would help cover the costs of desalination plants.
‘People have been able to adjust their water use during times of water restrictions. These same adjustments could occur if the price of water rises during times of low dam levels.’
Population growth in Australia is inevitable, but our plentiful rainfall combined with new water saving and harvesting technologies are more than up to the challenge of providing water for a bigger Australia.
Rebecca Gill is a Researcher at The Centre for Independent Studies. She is available for comment.
