Metropolitan region weekly water update - data as at 2 November 2017
Metropolitan region weekly water update – data as at 2 November 2017
|
|
Target |
Actual |
|
1.6 billion litres |
1.7 billion litres |
|
|
N/A |
45.2% |
|
|
(since 1 May 2017) |
25 billion litres |
89.3 billion litres |
|
22.3mm (monthly average) |
0mm |
Note: 1 billion litres = 1 Subiaco Oval filled to the goalposts
Is your suburb in our Top 10 highest and lowest water using suburbs?
This week we released our top 10 highest and lowest water using suburbs across Perth for the 2016-17 financial year, and this generated a fair amount of media coverage.
Below is the list in case you missed it…
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Top 10 highest water consuming suburbs with minimum of 500 connections (average household water use - highest to lowest in litres/household) |
Peppermint Grove – 402,000 Dalkeith – 342,000 Gooseberry Hill – 340,000 Bedfordale – 333,000 Darlington – 330,000 Henley Brook – 328,000 Iluka – 319,000 City Beach – 318,000 Mount Claremont – 317,000 Jane Brook – 312,000 |
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10 lowest water consuming suburbs with minimum of 500 connections (average household water use - lowest to highest in litres/household) |
Perth – 118,000 Highgate – 123,000 West Perth – 124,000 East Perth – 126,000 Cockburn Central – 127,000 Northbridge – 137,000 Midland – 143,000 Fremantle 143,000 Osborne Park – 149,000 Jolimont – 150,000 |
While many people debated on social media that the top highest suburbs had big block sizes - and therefore would use lots more water – a big garden/verge doesn’t necessarily have to mean lots of water use. With 40 per cent of each household’s water use occurring outside the home this is where most of our savings can be made. A garden full of native plants doesn’t require much water – in fact once the plants are established many can survive our summers without any watering at all.
But why bother saving water – shouldn’t we all be able to use as much as we like? Well, it might surprise you to know that since the mid-seventies climate change has reduced dam and groundwater levels to a point where there isn’t enough to meet all our drinking water needs. While desalination now makes up the gap, if our water use doesn’t remain at the level we project each year, it means new sources of water will be needed sooner than we planned. More than $2billion has already been spent on desalination plants and other projects to combat climate change and its effect on our water supplies – if you’re a Water Corporation customer you have contributed to that investment through your bills. So to help keep water affordable for the whole community, and for future generations, it’s important we all do our bit to save.
The average household water use in Perth in 2016-17 was 223,000 litres. To check how your suburb compares visit
https://www.watercorporation.com.au/save-water/check-your-suburbs-water-use
Water use
Our average daily water use last week was 760 million litres, which was below the forecast of 801 million litres per day. Our financial year to date water use is 77.6 billion litres – good news as it’s less than the 78.8 billion litres we forecast.
Dam levels
Over the last seven days Perth’s dam storage levels decreased from 45.4% to 45.3% (0.1 percentage points). It’s important to remember Perth’s dams also store ground and desalinated water that is transferred from our treatment plants.
Sprinkler roster compliance
The two-day-per week sprinkler roster now applies, and this week our inspectors issued 43 warnings and 83 fines in the metro region. This is compared to 51 warnings and 77 fines the previous week. Year to date we have taken a total of 7,949 actions (warnings + fines) compared to 8,962 actions for the same period in 2016.
Rainfall
The average monthly rainfall for November is 22.3mm – last November we received 14.4mm. So far this month we have received 0mm of rainfall. Since 1 January 2017, we have received 808.6mm of rainfall compared to the cumulative average of 833.5mm (January to October).
Contact: Media Team
Phone: (08) 9420 2555