Water Action PlansLessons from Australia

Trevor HillGlobal Water

January 2011

Water Scarcity

Sources: World Resources Institute (2003) and Global Water Intelligence (11 Feb 2010)

[The]“water crisis” is really about the political realization in many parts of the world that we cannot continue to live as if water availability were not a restraint on our activities. It is a bit like coming to terms with the fact that Santa Claus does not exist.

• In Arizona, cities “function like space stations, importing every ounce of fresh water from distant rivers or fossil aquifers.”

• “In arid places…physics amplify evaporation and drought, visible in the dust-dry farms of the Murray-Darling River Basin in Australia.

Water Sustainability

Source: Barbara Kingsolver, “Water Is Life”, National Geographic, “Water Our Thirsty World”, April 2010

Learning from the Aussies

Water Reality

Source: The World Bank, “Making the Most of Scarcity - Accountability for Better Water Management Results in the Middle East and North Africa”, 2007

THE REALITY OF WATER PRESSURES

Planning = Preparation

South Australia, Water fro Good

Price Signals = Conservation

Household water usage in Queensland plummeted almost 40 per cent in four years while the cost of the precious commodity more than doubled.

The cost of water increased from 97 cents per 1000 litres ($3.67/1000 gallons) in 2005 to $2.32 per 1000 litres ($8.79/1000 gallons) last year, a new Australian Bureau of Statistics report has revealed.

According to recent submissions to the Queensland Competition Authority, the state's residents may soon pay the most for the resource after additional price hikes of between 7.5 per cent and 23 per cent in 2011-12.

Action = Adaptability

Daniel Spiller, Queensland Water Commission, presentation at G’Day USA 2010 Water Policy Forum, “Demand management: The South East Queensland story”, 14 January 2010

History No Longer The Best Predictor