Australian Water Use

Looking at water use in Australia, after the Australian let slip that just 9% of water is used in households, and I did a bit of searching and came up with this site:

http://audit.ea.gov.au/ANRA/water/do...Water_Use.html

Why is domestic use lumped in with Industry? (I haven't been able to find a site that separates Domestic and commercial city use yet)

Given that
goundwater is generally not an option for domestic consumption, I did some numbers on the surface water use from that site:


(GigaLitres):
Irrigation: 15,354
Urban/Industry: 3,303
Rural: 451
Total:19,109

If 'Rural' is households in rural areas, Agriculture is using 15354/19109 or 80.34% and the City is using 3303/19109 or 17.28% and that INCLUDES commercial/industrial use.


Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't be conserving water in the city, but something is wrong here. I don't see or hear of any campaigns to minimise consumption in Agriculture. A 20% saving in the country would equal the ENTIRE city consumption. According to the Australian, a 10% Ag saving would approximate the entire household consumption!



??? Someone point out where my maths is wrong please.




woodbe.

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I don't see or hear of any campaigns to minimise consumption in Agriculture.

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Its been a major focus of the CRC's (co-operative research centres - industry funded research organisations with some Govt. funding support) and DPI research for a very long time.
Some flood irrigation systems are averaging between 95 - 99% total efficiency (i.e. 95 - 99% of the water entering the paddock goes into the ground) and have been doing so for quite a few years.
Contrary to popular perception, the Cotton industry has been leading the way in spending on research and implementing better irrigation practices, very proactive.
Google will find more, search Australian sites for ' crc + research + cotton '
Its an interesting field.

The greatest potential gains are in reducing evaporation from the storages.... nothing is being spent there at all.
If you can find the evaporation rates for Menindie Lakes and compare to the water use of Cubbie Station - interesting numbers.

With irrigation look at it another way... do you like aussie produce on your plate?
There are some crops that shouldnt be grown here in Oz

If your looking for culprits you can start with ESSO offshore oil rigs.
I can't quote the quantity, however farmers flood irrigating are using a mere pittance compared to ESSO.
What they do is pump FRESH water from underground aquifers to raise the oil up. Everywhere else in the world the water is recycled but here in Oz they just leave it where it is.
Loy Yang coal power station can be put in the same bag as ESSO for fresh water consumption.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by woodbe

I don't see or hear of any campaigns to minimise consumption in Agriculture.


woodbe.

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Woodbe,

You are right off the mark when it comes to on farm water use, for starters who is really consuming the water, the farmer or the end consumer. It is not an easy answer but if you want cheap vegies on the table it comes with cheap irrigation water.

More to the point go and have a look at the benefits of lazer grading, reuse dams, salinity control, irrigation water runoff control, micro sprays, drip irrigation and the list goes on. An enormous amount is being done at the farm end to minimize water use and to make water go further. Money is also being spent to make sure farm runoff is stopped in its tracks to prevent high nutrient loads hitting the waterways and causing blue green alge and other problems. Farmers are doing a lot but the current water trading that the Federal Government thinks is a panacia is just a smoke screen to cover how little they have done, the states have been more proactive on this one.

The cities may not be into underground water but that is where our town draws its supplies from, as do a number of other towns across the country.

In the end if you think about it, you and I Joe Blow householder are the ultimate consumers of the products industry and the rural community produce and to make changes it will come at a cost to all of us at the end of the production line.

We have to be more savvy with water use, at home, on the farm and in industry, and only a combined approach will work. So I guess we need to start thinking about recycling, efficiency and collection. As far as farm use goes there is probably more lost in evaporation and delivery than actually gets to the farms. What we need is a massive infrastructure fund to concrete line and cover the channels for a start. We really need to recycle water efficiently which would include grey water at home used for the garden, as well as industry recycling for its own use. Some of this has already started, we need to move towards encouraging through financial incentives a greater effort on the part of households, farms and industry. Forget about new dams, they are expensive compared to improving the efficiency of the existing catchments and their delivery systems and improvements at that end should give a better outcome anyway.

If we are going to become more efficient it will come at a cost and that cost will be bourne by a combination of taxpayers and consumers, which is one and the same.

John.

John
I agree with you almost completely.
As the population rises, so will water usage, even with more efficient usage.
Dams collect and store water. More dams means more collection and storage.
I am aware of the problems with and resistance to new dams, but forgetting about them eliminates one part of a very broad problem that will need everything that we can come up with.
As you have clearly pointed out,this is not a one solution problem.
To help, I'm drinking my scotch straight nowadays,
All the best Gary

Successive state and federal governments have made some very stupid decisions over the years regarding water use. Chief among them is encouraging farmers to grow water hogging crops such as rice and cotton. These crops just don't belong here. And allowing multi-nationals like Esso to plunder our natural resources with little regard for the long term environmental impact. I'm no damn greenie but I don't wanna die of thirst just so politicians can keep farmers and industrialists happy. :rant2:rant over.

Firstly, please, I'm interested in understanding what's going on with water, not having an argument about it. Of course, we all have to conserve it better than we do now, and believe me when I say I'm doing what I can at home, and will do more as I can.

Yes, we eat food. I don't see that as consumers of food we have a choice of inefficient irrigation over efficient, but happy to be shown where I'm wrong there, and modify my purchasing accordingly.

I hear what you say about the cost, and the writing has been on the wall now for some years. We live in a very dry country, and it will cost to do anything about these issues. We may not like it, but we have to take our medicine :)

Maybe with all the technologies mentioned, the usage has improved since 1996/97, but at that time, Ag use was increasing faster than anything else?

Figure 25. Change in mean annual water use in Australia between 1983/84 and 1996/97

http://audit.ea.gov.au/ANRA/water/gi...ater_Fig25.gif

This table linked from the article linked in my first post. Anyone have more recent information?

woodbe.

Woodbe,
what the graphs don't show, and what a lot of people don't grasp, when irrigation usage (and cost per Megalitre) is discussed, is that in a lot (most?) cases irrigators are building most of the required infrastructure themselves whereas most domestic and industrial consumers have it piped to their front door. Not suggesting that by doing so that it excuses them from being more careful with water use though.

The increase in irrigation water use could also be partly explained by an increase in population:
More people = more mouths to feed = more food to grow.
plus less rainfall:
Less rainfall = greater need for irrigation.

As our society has become more affluent consumers have been able to afford, and have demanded, fruit and vegetables that in the past have been grown on a smaller scale because they needed more irrigation and therefore cost more. If greater efficiences are required or irrigators are charged higher license fees etc then costs will rise and ultimately demand will decrease.

That's my take and 2c worth, anyway.

Mick

The other thing that bugs me is that in my municipality water is not metered so there is no excess water rate. Talk about stupid. And the council's reason for refusing to do so? Because about 10% of the population live in rural areas (on farms) and wouldn't like it. :~

What peeves me is the bandaid 'buy a tank' campaign, advertising something the size of two wheelie bins for $800, just how far do people think it's going to go?
Unfortunately most urban dwellers have no concept of how much water they use, and these little tanks would barely last a couple of days.
We want to put in tanks and I estimate we need three 27000 gallon jobs to last us, and rainfall during the year to keep them topped up, when we lived near Beechworth we had 40000 gallons of rainwater and three dams to supply the house and we just got through, the rainwater was for the kitchen only and dam water for the bathroom and laundry.
The point I am trying to make is that a 100 gallon tank is only going to serve to make your sense of pride feel a little better, your wallet a lot lighter and apart from that pretty much bugger all else.

Myth:

Irrigators use more than 70% of all the water in Australia.

Reality:

Irrigators use about 70% of the total amount of water that is used in Australia. Of all the water that’s available in NSW, the amount used by irrigators is about 19%.

Myth:

Irrigation has resulted in hundreds of threatened fish species

Reality:

In NSW, The Fisheries Management Act provides for the protection of threatened aquatic species. Under NSW statutes, only 2 fish species are considered endangered, and a further 3 considered vulnerable. 1 ecological community is currently considered as threatened

Myth:

Irrigators use their water irresponsibly

Reality:

Irrigators, like everyone have a responsibility to ensure that what they do doesn’t adversely impact on others. Specifically, irrigators need to have approvals from the State Government to irrigate land. For example, to grow rice, landholders have to meet strict standards and get a permit. In major irrigation areas, growers must comply with Government approved land and water management plans to even receive the water that they are entitled to.

Myth:

Irrigators want to privately own water

Reality:

Irrigators believe that water is a public resource that must be shared among different users including the environment, town water supply, industry and agriculture. Irrigators are seeking secure access rights to their share of the available water.

Myth:

Irrigators don’t pay enough for their water

Reality:

In NSW, the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal set the prices for water, for both urban domestic consumption and for industrial and agricultural use. The price of water for irrigators depends on the type of licence they hold and location, but like urban residents consists of a fixed service fee plus a usage charge, and takes into account the full costs of providing the water. When the capital cost of developing
irrigation farming systems are added to these fixed and floating charges, the cost of accessing water is about $1000ML.

Myth:

Irrigators are inefficient users of water

Reality:

Irrigators in NSW are some of the most efficient producers in the world, and as our farming techniques and irrigation technology continues to refine, this efficiency can only improve. As an example, since 1996, rice growers have improved their efficiency by more than 60%3, while Australian growers use 1 megalitre of water to produce 227 kilograms of cotton lint and are far more efficient than their American (138kg), Egyptian (136kg) or Pakistani counterparts (59kg)4.

Myth: Irrigators are the major causes of salinity

Reality:

The National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality identifies dryland salinity as a particular cause for concern. In the last 10 years, communities in the major irrigation areas have implemented management plans to deal with issues such as rising groundwater tables, and the quality of runoff.

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Originally Posted by Iain

What peeves me is the bandaid 'buy a tank' campaign, advertising something the size of two wheelie bins for $800, just how far do people think it's going to go?
Unfortunately most urban dwellers have no concept of how much water they use, and these little tanks would barely last a couple of days.
We want to put in tanks and I estimate we need three 27000 gallon jobs to last us, and rainfall during the year to keep them topped up, when we lived near Beechworth we had 40000 gallons of rainwater and three dams to supply the house and we just got through, the rainwater was for the kitchen only and dam water for the bathroom and laundry.
The point I am trying to make is that a 100 gallon tank is only going to serve to make your sense of pride feel a little better, your wallet a lot lighter and apart from that pretty much bugger all else.

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YE GODS! You must have a family of thousands Iain!!! I have 12,000 gallons of water, 4000 of that I keep "in reserve", apart from the toilets that has kept a family of 4, including auto washing machine and dishwasher, going no worries. Once in 25 years we have had to tap into our reserve..... the garden and dunnies areconnected to the bore. To those of you who begrudge the cocky his water I have only one thing to say.... STARVE!

I won't respond to this idiotic thread. I'd get into trouble by a newly appointed deputy sheriff, have my post deleted, and receive another infraction.

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Originally Posted by Christopha

YE GODS! You must have a family of thousands Iain!!! I have 12,000 gallons of water, 4000 of that I keep "in reserve", apart from the toilets that has kept a family of 4, including auto washing machine and dishwasher, going no worries. Once in 25 years we have had to tap into our reserve..... the garden and dunnies areconnected to the bore. To those of you who begrudge the cocky his water I have only one thing to say.... STARVE!

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But part of our business is the training and re education of horses, bloody big ones too.
On a hot day they can easily consume 40 litres each and at present we have 10.
Yes, they do pay, but we have to feed and water them to make this a sustainable business, not any different to cattle or sheep, just a different high dollar value animal at the end of the day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iain

The point I am trying to make is that a 100 gallon tank is only going to serve to make your sense of pride feel a little better, your wallet a lot lighter and apart from that pretty much bugger all else.

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From http://www.savewater.com.au/index.php?sectionid=200 :

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Originally Posted by http://www.savewater.com.au/index.php?sectionid=200

If the 5 million homes connected to mains water around Australia each had a 1,000 litre water tank, 5GL (5 Billion Litres) of water would not have to be taken from the environment every year'

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I think the point is that domestic use is a relatively small user of water, so even a 1000 litre tank would make a significant impact to total domestic consumption. Don't forget that during the rain season, the tank could remain full most of the time, so the net effect is far more than 1 x 1000 litres.

woodbe.

And a 1000 litre tank is only going to be used for the garden, hardly worth hooking up to the house.

Hey Woodbe,
I bet you have a nice garden with flowers and lawn that you irrigate, How many people does that feed and clothe?
Do you recycle your tail water?
Do you know your own water use efficiency rate?
Agricultural production in NSW continues to exceed the rate of population growth depite irrigation entitlements continually being reduced by governments.

the federal government's 2001 State of the Environment report calculated that the Sydney Water Corporation released 548 GL of wastewater, and 420 GL of stormwater to the sea in one year.

Do you wear cotton underpants?
Are you hungry yet?

I wonder if in preparing statistics of agricultural water use that the evaporation and leakage from open channels (which is around 90%) has been included as "agricultural" use.

This distorts the true agricultural water usage statistics.

It is water lost due to obsolete delivery systems.
This is the responsibility of governments who continue to shirk their role.

I contend if open channels were piped or covered there wouldn't be a water shortage.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Iain

And a 1000 litre tank is only going to be used for the garden, hardly worth hooking up to the house.

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Actually, in SA at least, the tank rebate involves plumbing into the house and some sort of switchover mechanism. It is directly targetted at Mr Joe and Jane Public. No plumbing = no rebate. The desired impact definitely seems to be to replace some domestic consumption with tank water.

woodbe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Howdya do that

Hey Woodbe,
I bet you have a nice garden with flowers and lawn that you irrigate, How many people does that feed and clothe?
Do you recycle your tail water?
Do you know your own water use efficiency rate?
Agricultural production in NSW continues to exceed the rate of population growth depite irrigation entitlements continually being reduced by governments.

the federal government's 2001 State of the Environment report calculated that the Sydney Water Corporation released 548 GL of wastewater, and 420 GL of stormwater to the sea in one year.

Do you wear cotton underpants?
Are you hungry yet?

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C'mon, please don't make this personal. I have already said that I've been doing my bit, and no water-hungry garden. Agapanthas are very hardy :)

How do you work out your water use efficiency rate?

woodbe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by woodbe

C'mon, please don't make this personal. I have already said that I've been doing my bit, and no water-hungry garden. Agapanthas are very hardy :)

How do you work out your water use efficiency rate?

woodbe.

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Value of production divided by quantity of water used.
There's nothing personal about it. It just gets right up my nose that so many people read or hear figures like you have and what the water produces and provides is forgotten.
A farmer is a business man and if he's not he's not going to be a farmer for long, Ask yourself this question:-
Would any business man spend more money or use more resources producing his product than he has to, to satisfy the market?

2 bits worth

l think everbody has been slow on the whole water / envio thing we were all told years a like 10 that all this would happen peopels attatides don't change until they have to (like we have no water to water my roses) now we are told that the earth is going heat up and still we can't agree on how to do it MONEY playing such a big part
eg ..stop consuming so much everbody
glow your own food .catch your water .2hand things are ok

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Originally Posted by SPIRIT

glow your own food

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Hmm, I thought this was an environmental post, but here he is telling us to NUKE our food :)(

Richard

dam my fat fingers ,:B bugger the L not near the R:C

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Originally Posted by Howdya do that

Ask yourself this question:-
Would any business man spend more money or use more resources producing his product than he has to, to satisfy the market?

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That's the point, isn't it. There is a trade off between money and resources. It costs a lot of money to make significant inroads in water use. So in your example, the business man may save money by using a cheap resource inefficiently.

An urban example. The car wash. It costs between $5 and $25 depending where you go, and the wash itself uses maybe 200 litres of water (guess, I have no idea really, but I can't imagine it's more than that) Water in SA costs just $1.09 per 1000 litres, so when the water per car wash costs just $0.20 where is the motivation to save it? Thankfully, the government has stepped in and forced water efficiency on the industry, but the major costs of the business would have to be wages, power and rent for land and machinery.

It's a competitive market, and the unit cost of production is a big single deciding factor for profit. Water doesn't cost enough to hit the business cost radar unless the business is using an awful lot of it.

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Value of production divided by quantity of water used.

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Well, ok. Not really applicable towards domestic circumstances, although our kids are priceless, so it's a bit hard to calculate :)

Note that this efficiency measure is dependant on market. I'd guess that the high water usage crops score well on it, but given that most of that stuff is exported, that's a bit like filling tankers with Aussie water and sending it overseas. Nice when we have excess water, but in times of shortage...

woodbe.

so what is the answer do we keep saving water until there is none left to save or do we make it rain more

Time for everyone to do a rain dance.

:aerobics::aerobics::aerobics:

Al:roll:

a cloud just came over come on everybody dance:yippee:

OK, I'm going to stick my neck out a country kilometer.

When I purchased my house, it had a swimming pool which holds about 20,000 litres of water. If I spent about $45,000, I could have it removed and the space re-landscaped, and perhaps that's what I will end up doing.

However, in the meantime, I and tens of thousands of pool owners are faced with a dilemma. Stage 4 water restrictions will only allow pool topping-up by bucket. The bucket must be filled at a tap, not by a hose.

Although I recently purchased a pool cover to minimise evaporation, the pool still looses about 10mm of water per week. Once the water level drops below the skimmer box, the filtration system will no longer function. I haven't started to top the pool with buckets yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if this took hundreds of bucket per week (if not more). If I can keep up, I may be able to keep the pool filtered and avoid stagnation, algae growth and mosquito infestation. But I can imagine that there will be many pool owners that won't or can't keep there pools maintained.

What are the potential health hazards of this? :?

I think any ineficiencies in irrigation are more likely to be tied to evaporation in storage and transport (dams and open channels as others have said) rather than the actual delivery to the crop. Sure, you'll lose some to evaporation but most watering is done early in the morning to minimise this, and you will have some run-off and you will be watering weeds and headlands but all in all it's pretty efficient. I don't think many farmers would waste too much irrigation water, even if they don't pay what the domestic consumer considers a lot for it. See there's another cost involved and that's the electricity or diesel to pump it to where it's got to go. It's a bit different for the car wash operator, if he wants/needs to recycle he needs to construct settling tanks and filters and then a holding tank, much cheaper to let the stuff go down the drain and get some nice, fresh, potable stuff from the tap.

Mick

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Originally Posted by DPB

........................What are the potential health hazards of this? :?

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Well if you live in the tropics there's a huge potential for Ross river fever, Dengue fever and maybe even malaria. Also wheels disease (Leptospirosis) apparently is not just contactable from rats urine but is harboured in stagnant water. Up here there's about 2 cases per year, some of them fatal (friend of a friend just died from it a few months ago) so if the countryside is dotted with swimming pools full of stagnant water we may see an increase in Leptospirosis and probably a few other diseases as well. If othing else you'll have plagues of mosquitos and the council health inspector knocking on the door.

Mick

Mick, I don't have a pool, but if I did, I'd be doing things like diverting the warmup water from the shower (that's the water that you run before the hot water arrives) to the pool. In the long term, greywater recycling would have to be the only sustainable method of keeping a pool, but the health authorities are going to need some convincing...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DPB

OK, I'm going to stick my neck out a country kilometer.

When I purchased my house, it had a swimming pool which holds about 20,000 litres of water. If I spent about $45,000, I could have it removed and the space re-landscaped, and perhaps that's what I will end up doing.

However, in the meantime, I and tens of thousands of pool owners are faced with a dilemma. Stage 4 water restrictions will only allow pool topping-up by bucket. The bucket must be filled at a tap, not by a hose.

Although I recently purchased a pool cover to minimise evaporation, the pool still looses about 10mm of water per week. Once the water level drops below the skimmer box, the filtration system will no longer function. I haven't started to top the pool with buckets yet, but it wouldn't surprise me if this took hundreds of bucket per week (if not more). If I can keep up, I may be able to keep the pool filtered and avoid stagnation, algae growth and mosquito infestation. But I can imagine that there will be many pool owners that won't or can't keep there pools maintained.

What are the potential health hazards of this? :?

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:roll: Now I don't want you to get sick by not carrying your buckets around and I don't want you to "Do yer back in" carrying the things either so why don't you do the right thing by society and fill the mongrel thing in and stop wasting water with a frigging pool at all????:aargh:

fill the pools in and plant cacti in them.
lobby councils to implement grey water purification. I'd drink it.

Page 14 from the WE Australian, Inquirer section:

"The new reality of living with less rain"

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Originally Posted by The Australian

Water managers are warning the three big dams on the Murray will be dry or close to dry by the end of May 2007 if there is no rain. If that happens, Adelaide, which relies on the Murray for much of it's water, will, in the words of water spokesman for the Australian Council for Infrastructure Development, Graham Dooley, be "basically stuffed. The amount of water available in the Murray for all purposes is going to be under very, very severe restrictions"

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They go on to say that Perth is the only city to have planned for the current drought and adopted a 'scenario approach', the rest have been planning based on historical yields that just have not been happening, but those cities are slowly changing their approach.

After reading that, I don't know why Adelaide isn't on the highest possible water restrictions already. We're going to level 3 on January 1.

woodbe.

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Originally Posted by Christopha

do the right thing by society and fill the mongrel thing in

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Better still, put a tank liner in it and cover it. Collect the rainwater off the house into it and plumb it back into the house.

woodbe.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Christopha

:roll: Now I don't want you to get sick by not carrying your buckets around and I don't want you to "Do yer back in" carrying the things either so why don't you do the right thing by society and fill the mongrel thing in and stop wasting water with a frigging pool at all????:aargh:

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Wot a waste...:aargh: :aargh: :aargh:

Put a roof on it and yer got an underground shed :o :o

just going to make up facts as l go along now
there is the same rainfall globely as there was befor to what has changed
cutting down trees has something to do with it
a group of trees changes the air pressure above them which in turn makes the water fall from the sky
so we must plant more trees a lot more .were we wont the rain to fall
now to do this you do need a lot of trees our 1 mil tree plant by the gov is like a drop in the sea ...stop cutting more planting .the cost will be masive but bean counters are already saying the envio going down hill is going to put a dampener on good xmas prizzies in a few years saveing water is just a bandaid
l was told by a botherer the day of judgement is comming

let us all dance

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Originally Posted by SPIRIT

just going to make up facts as l go along now
Dont spoil a good story with facts
there is the same rainfall globely as there was befor to what has changed
cutting down trees has something to do with it
a group of trees changes the air pressure above them which in turn makes the water fall from the sky
I thought trees grew where there was more rain, not the other way around?
so we must plant more trees a lot more .were we wont the rain to fall
I have a lot of trees in my back yard but it doesnt rain much?
now to do this you do need a lot of trees our 1 mil tree plant by the gov is like a drop in the sea ...stop cutting more planting .the cost will be masive but bean counters are already saying the envio going down hill is going to put a dampener on good xmas prizzies Hope we can still cut down Chrissie trees though in a few years saveing water is just a bandaid
l was told by a botherer the day of judgement is comming
Nothing like a good..........story

let us all dance

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