Water restrictions in Australia
Depending upon the location, these can include restrictions on watering lawns, using sprinkler systems, washing vehicles, hosing pavement, refilling swimming pools, etc.
The Rules include:[16] To deal with its water shortage, New South Wales has followed the same path as Western Australia, in which a desalination plant for Sydney was built at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion.
[31] In 2017 the Northern Territory Government introduced Compulsory Water Conservation Measures to the Katherine region to take pressure off of their groundwater supplies.
On 13 May 2005, 13 local councils in southeast Queensland, including those in Brisbane, agreed to impose Stage 1 water restrictions, due to drying dams.
Adelaide and much of south-eastern South Australia takes its drinking water from the Murray River.
[43] Even lower inflows to the Murray River over the course of 2006 led to the even tougher Level 3 water restrictions being imposed on the region from 1 January 2007,[44] which remain in place.
These areas include Murray Mallee, areas north of Port Augusta, Kangaroo Island, Cockburn, Hawker, Melrose, Ororoo, Parachilna, Quorn, Warooka, Wilmington, Terowie, Yunta, Olary and Manna Hill.
Usually, there are only water restrictions for domestic consumption in remote areas which experience high levels of tourism, and therefore increased usage, in summer months.
Examples[47] of such restrictions are: One purpose of such restrictions is to keep the multiple smaller river fed water storage levels high enough to ensure adequate water pressure for the fire department's needs in the event of fires.
[62] A Stage 1 ban on using reticulation sprinklers between 9.00 am and 6.00 pm was imposed on Perth residents in 1996,[58] and remains in place to this day.
This was the first water restriction imposed on the state's most populous city since the total sprinkler ban in 1978.
[58] From September 2001, users of the Integrated Water Supply Scheme (covering Perth, its surrounds and towns on the Goldfields pipeline) were subject to Stage 4 restrictions, only permitted to use reticulation sprinklers two days per week, according to a roster.
The town of Northampton in the Mid-West encountered a water shortage in 2006 where its underground aquifer could not meet demand.
[64] Stage 4 water restrictions were imposed in the South-West towns of Bridgetown, Balingup, Boyup Brook, Hester, Kirup, Greenbushes and Mullalyup from 13 October 2006.
One has already been constructed in Kwinana, which supplies 17% of the city's water consumption and is the largest desalination plant in both the Southern and Eastern hemispheres.
[72] A trial has also been announced to treat wastewater and pump it into underground aquifers to undergo natural filtration as it returns to the dwindling groundwater supply.
