Water Corporation innovation receives global recognition

Water Corporation has been recognised as a global leader in planning for climate resilience by the world’s leading water utilities at an international conference in Madrid this week.

The Global Water Summit has appointed Water Corporation as one of only six inaugural members of the Leading Utilities of the World group, a newly formed network created to share ideas and drive performance across the water utility sector.

Water Corporation Chief Executive Officer Sue Murphy said Western Australia’s story of a drying climate and how we planned for and delivered climate independent water sources, while at the same time working with the community to use less water, was well known and highly regarded in international water circles.

“Western Australia is the benchmark that others look to when addressing the significant challenges of decreasing rainfall, and all current and former Water Corporation employees should be very proud of this global acknowledgement,” Ms Murphy said.

“Membership to the group is recognition that Water Corporation is essentially considered as among the best in the world.”

Ms Murphy said in the 2015-16 year the largest water source for the Integrated Water Supply Scheme came from desalinated water, which made up 47 per cent of the drinking water supplied to customers in the scheme. Another 46 per cent came from groundwater supplies while only 7 per cent of drinking water was sourced from Perth’s dams.

“Careful planning has ensured that while streamflow into our dams has decreased dramatically since 1975, with the winter of 2015 being the lowest on record, we can switch to climate independent water sources as a secure water supply for our customers,” Ms Murphy said.

Fact file:

• In 2015-16 Water Corporation supplied 370 billion litres of drinking water to 1.25 million properties in Western Australia.
• The six inaugural members of Leading Utilities of the World are: Water Corporation (Western Australia), DC Water (United States), Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (United States), Waterworks Bureau of City of Kitakyusha (Japan), Waternet Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Public Utilities Board (Singapore).