SUSTAINABILITY AND WSAA'S FIVE YEAR FORWARD LOOK

摘要

Late in 2002, WSAA undertook an extensive national survey of the chief executives of our member utilities to determine priority actions for the future. The survey indicated that while drinking water quality is, and will continue to be important, the issue of long term reliability of water supplies is now the major issue facing our utilities in the future. This result is not surprising given the drought conditions occurring in many areas of the country. However, while our industry is adept at managing shorter term issues such as droughts, it is the medium to longer term outlook that provides the most concern. Consider that our hydrologists have used available rainfall records for designing major source storages such as Warragamba in Sydney, Wivenhoe in Brisbane and Thomson in Melbourne. These records generally go back only 100 years. The current extended period of drought is now rewriting the recorded information on predicted stream flows from which we design storages. Our climatologists are telling us that this may be a sustained change - whether greenhouse-induced or not. Cities such as Perth, Melbourne and Sydney may have medium term problems with sustainable supply of water. While Brisbane currently has sufficient supply for the medium term future, this does not apply to South East Queensland. This summer, the Gold Coast faced a critical supply situation which is not yet fully resolved.