The Australian Approach to Water
In general, urban water authorities in Australia have historically focused on a once-through use-and-dispose approach to water. This involved water harvest, treatment, storage, use and disposal through a system of pipes over a large area.
During the past decade it has been increasingly recognised that Australia's water resources are limited and that traditional approaches to meeting demand by expanding supply (eg. new dams) are unsustainable.
Policies have begun to focus on more efficient, sustainable and integrated use of existing resources as well as regarding wastewater as a source of water rather than a waste product.
Integrated water management encourages coordination of local, state, national and international strategies to ensure that water is used optimally and other related issues (such as greenhouse gas production) are addressed.
Current water treatment technologies allow rainwater, greywater and effluent to be cleaned and made available for more than one use, thus reducing overall requirements.
Rainwater
At our cities increase in size the use of rainwater and stormwater as an alternative source of water has been overlooked and in many cases actually discouraged. In most Australian cities the amount of total runoff gathered from our hard surfaces in a year of average rainfall is about the same as the amount of total water used.
In Australia we have built our major cities either next to coast lines or in close proximity to major rivers so that we could easily access freshwater and discharge households and industrial waste. we developed reticulated water supply that was connected to almost every household and then if that household wasn't connected but we ran the mains water past it decided to charge them for it anyway.
We constructed sealed roads and pathways,acres of roofed houses, buildings, carparks, roads, so that an enormous areas become impermeable to water. then we also made sure that these areas drained into a stormwater system which flowed into our water ways without treatment.
Melbourne has faced a number of temporary water restrictions in the past and in 2005 permanent water restrictions were introduced.
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