Metro weekly water use update 1 December 2017

Note: 1 billion litres = 1 Subiaco Oval filled to the goalposts

Improving water literacy in WA

Next week you may notice some new advertisements appear online and in cinemas, which are part of a new campaign aimed at improving water literacy.

Water literacy is knowledge about water sources, water management and water-related issues and is a key factor when it comes to water conservation behaviours.

In WA about 13 per cent of the population has ‘high water literacy’ so there is significant room to improve on this.

The new campaign sees customers ask their pressing questions about water with comedy icon Peter Rowsthorn playing the voice of reason.

Water use

Our average daily water use last week was 943 million litres, which was above the forecast of 935 million litres per day.  Our financial year to date water use is 103.7 billion litres, which is slightly above the 103.6 billion litres we forecast.

Dam levels

Over the last seven days, Perth’s dam storage levels decreased 0.3 percentage points from 44.6.0% to 44.3%.  Perth’s dams store groundwater and desalinated seawater that is transferred from our treatment plants as well as streamflow (comes from rainfall).

Sprinkler roster compliance

The two-day-per week sprinkler roster now applies, and this week our inspectors issued 158 warnings and 199 fines in the metro region.  This is compared to 142 warnings and 134 fines the previous week.   Year-to-date we have taken a total of 9093 actions (warnings + fines) compared to 9941 actions for the same period in 2016.

Please remember to stick to your two rostered watering days per week, and 10 minutes per station is usually about right for most sprinkler systems. 

Rainfall

The average monthly rainfall for December is 13.1mm.  So far this month, Perth has received 0mm of rainfall.  Since 1 January 2017, Perth has received 813.4mm of rainfall, which is less than the average of 844.5mm (January to December period).