Australian Water Management Review Vol 1 2010 | страница 38

Drought drives innovation
in water planning

by Emma Pryor and Simon Bluestone,
MWH
In response to a variety of pressures,
water planning in developed nations has
changed significantly over the past 40
years. Many innovative responses have
emerged to address increasing social,
economic and environmental challenges
associated with water use.
In particular, in parts of Australia and the
United States, the severity of drought
has provided the impetus for significant
change in water planning over relatively
short periods of time.

Australian experience

Having expanded in response to a series
of droughts, the current operating
storage capacity of the Sydney system of
dams is around 2,600 billion litres. This
was sufficient to see the city through
the moderate drought of 1992-1998;
however, facing yet another severe
drought that began in 2002, the New
South Wales government developed
the ‘Metropolitan Water Plan’ in 2004
(revised again in 2006). The plan adopts
the ‘Water for Life’ strategy, which has
four key components: dams, recycling,
water efficiency and desalination.
The components are advocated as a
diversification strategy to ensure the city
becomes less dependent upon rainfall.
Under the plan, recycling and desalination
will provide 12% and 15%, respectively,
of the city’s water needs by 2015, and
significant reductions in demand will be
achieved through efficiency. The adaptive
plan is presently being updated for republishing in 2010.
One element of the plan, the Sydney
desalination plant, was first developed
in 2004 and approved in 2006, when
Sydney’s dam supplies were approaching
30%. At the time, the desalination plant
was offered as the only viable emergency
solution; however, justification of the use
of desalination to meet water needs and
the potential environmental impact of
the plant have continued to be issues of
public debate.
By contrast, when the drought spread
through South East Queensland, where
the majority of that state’s population
resides, the supplies to major urban
centres began to come under threat.
In response, planning for the South
East Queensland Water Grid began

Water Management Review 2010

in 2006, which included the Western
Corridor Recycled Water Indirect Potable
Reuse (IPR) project, an initiative of the
Queensland Government. It is the largest
recycled water scheme in Australia and
will result in the recycling of almost
all of Brisbane’s effluent. The scheme
was commissioned in 2008, though the
IPR element is not yet in use as the
government has made the decision to put
recycled water into the drinking supply
only as a last resort.
From 2005 onwards, as the drought
situation worsened, every major city in
Australia planned seawater desalination
plants, most of which were built and
commissioned. The rapid development
of this source started with the Perth
plant (100 billion litres), and was followed
by Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and
Brisbane (Gold Coast). Alongside these
developments, demonstration projects
for IPR were put into planning in
Canberra and in Perth (managed aquifer
discharge), largely as research projects
to better understand the risks and
management required.
Concerned about the need to balance
supply alternatives, the federal
government increased its presence
in water management. In late 2006, a
national guideline framework for the
management of recycled water was
produced to ensure water products are
fit for their intended purposes, effectively
replacing a series of prescriptive
treatment trains and quality targets for
uses contained in state-based guidelines.
Then, in mid 2007, the National Water
Commission released a position paper on
the use of recycled water, endorsing the
industry research that stated IPR can be
‘satisfactorily and safely managed’ and is
deserving of ‘even-handed consideration
[…] as one option for communities to
augment their water supplies’. At the
same time, the national Productivity
Commission called for better economic
assessment of all water supply options.
With the national framework in place
(although still navigating state approval
processes), and caught in the grip of
severe drought, the City of Orange
in central New South Wales, home
to nearly 40,000 people, commenced
planning for the reuse of stormwater in
2007. Utilising the risk-based framework
to ensure fitness for purpose of the

product, the Blackman’s Swamp Creek
scheme was commissioned in 2009 and
will supply 20% of the city’s water supply
requirements (1,200 ML/a).
While there were small (often urban)
wins, the federal government was still
frustrated with the lack of progress in
integrated and sustainable water planning
by each of the states, particularly in
a rural setting and on a catchmentwide basis. In response, it passed the
Water Act 2007. This Act will see the
commencement of the first MurrayDarling Basin-wide, integrated and
sustainable water resource management
plan in 2011. For the first time, the
plan will provide a comprehensive
national framework for the sharing
of water between rural communities,
irrigators, mines, other industry a nd
the environment, taking into account
social, environmental and economic
considerations as well as climate change
adaptation, water quality, water rights
and water trading.

California dreaming

The western United States has long
struggled with water resources
management. Southern California’s
existence was premised on the ability
to provide water from where it fell in
the north or in the east, to where it was
needed for farming and urban growth
in the south. The Los Angeles Basin
comprises only 0.06% of the state’s
stream flow, yet serves as home to
more than 60% of the state’s population.
California’s population is predicted to
grow from the current 38 million to
more than 60 million people by 2050.
This is compounded by the pressures of
climate change, underfunded and ageing
infrastructure, environmental regulation
and economic crisis.
Over 45 years ago, in her doctoral thesis,
Noble Prize-winning economist Dr Elinor
Ostrom, noted the need for Southern
California to develop a more economic
and efficient source of water supply.
More recently, Dr Ostrom noted lessons
that apply to managing water rights:
1. there is no one best system for
governing water resources;
2. many more viable options exist
for resource management than
envisioned in much of the policy
literature;