Your water usage

[Frodo]

The whole water issue is spin.

The fact is that we have heaps of water but governments have failed to make sufficient infrastructure commitments in past years that have finaly caught up with us.

Do you think there are water resrictions in the Middle East?

No, we have been spun into blaming ourselves instead of demanding decent government.

 

[funkyfreo]

The whole water issue is spin.

The fact is that we have heaps of water but governments have failed to make sufficient infrastructure commitments in past years that have finaly caught up with us.

Do you think there are water resrictions in the Middle East?

No, we have been spun into blaming ourselves instead of demanding decent government.

Well it is because we expect it for essentially free than no one invests in it. the days of govts investing $$$ to help us waste stuff are over.

 

[Fitzroy1]

http://www.southeastwater.com.au/sewl/upload/document/WSDS.pdf

Analysis of water use data indicate that most water consumed by
Melburnians is used at home (59%), with about 30% used in industry and businesses. Some 11% is taken up
by ‘non-revenue water’ which includes leakage from water mains (7%) with the remainder used for firefighting,
stolen or unaccounted for due to meter inaccuracies (Figure 5).

just so you see I wasn't making it up. Melbourne water = 59% at home.

That is just one isolated area - Melbourne. You need to consider all of Vic where residential usage is just 11% of total.

My theory on water shortages is tha ****** is catch22. By not allowing people to water lawns (and even driveways) then there is less evaporation and less clouds and less rain leading to more restrictions.

I was always taught that the world is a closed eco-system i.e. water does not escape into outer space. So watering a lawn does not matter.

 

[Mr Q]

That is just one isolated area - Melbourne. You need to consider all of Vic where residential usage is just 11% of total.

My theory on water shortages is tha ****** is catch22. By not allowing people to water lawns (and even driveways) then there is less evaporation and less clouds and less rain leading to more restrictions.

I was always taught that the world is a closed eco-system i.e. water does not escape into outer space. So watering a lawn does not matter.

I think you might want to go do a bit more research though... Just because the water does not leave the Earth, does not mean it is always available in the same ongoing quantities at each part of the world.

As for watering being a good thing for water supplies - you are taking the piss, right? Unless you can show that the water that evaporates off your lawn/car/driveway actually ends up back in the water supply, then your argument holds no credibility. Basically, you'd need to show that it evaporates, goes straight up into a cloud, then rains directly back into the local water catchment area...

 

[likka]

The whole water issue is spin.

The fact is that we have heaps of water but governments have failed to make sufficient infrastructure commitments in past years that have finaly caught up with us.

Do you think there are water resrictions in the Middle East?

No, we have been spun into blaming ourselves instead of demanding decent government.

That's fine but the horse has bolted... we'll be dry as a bone within 10-20 years IMO.

 

[funkyfreo]

That is just one isolated area - Melbourne. You need to consider all of Vic where residential usage is just 11% of total.

It is not as though if the farmers used less there would be more for Melbourne though. Reticulated water distribution networks are closed loops.

The Melbourne scheme has a limited amount of water, so when residents use thess, there is more left. simple. When a farmer 500kms away uses less, there is no more for Mr Jones in St Kilda.

 

[Fitzroy1]

True , but I take it that it would not be too difficult to pump water from Northern Victoria to Melbourne.

There is also the issue that we kind of need farmers so that we have food to eat and don't need to import it from o/s.

 

[funkyfreo]

True , but I take it that it would not be too difficult to pump water from Northern Victoria to Melbourne.

There is also the issue that we kind of need farmers so that we have food to eat and don't need to import it from o/s.

So long as they pay true cost for the pipe and the resource I have no problems with that.

 

[utility]

I can't remember the source (might have been via ABC radio) but Melbourne domestic water use (or all domestic water use) accounts for 8% of water usage in Victoria. For other states it was higher.

Some of the major problems facing water reform are:

- Country electorates have greater voting power compared to city electorates so it is a major political risk to introduce significant rural water reforms (this also affects (de)salination projects - a major issue).
- The cost of water is too low. People have very little economic incentive to use less water.
- Governments these days have a bad track record of investing in state infrastructure because they are too busy trying to win votes with surplus budgets.

As I see it governments won't introduce genuine reforms because of the political risks involved, rather than having the balls to do something about it.

 

[Qsaint]

http://www.southeastwater.com.au/sewl/upload/document/WSDS.pdf

Analysis of water use data indicate that most water consumed by
Melburnians is used at home (59%), with about 30% used in industry and businesses. Some 11% is taken up
by ‘non-revenue water’ which includes leakage from water mains (7%) with the remainder used for firefighting,
stolen or unaccounted for due to meter inaccuracies (Figure 5).

just so you see I wasn't making it up. Melbourne water = 59% at home.

And how much is used to flush out the treatment Plants????

 

[Qsaint]

So long as they pay true cost for the pipe and the resource I have no problems with that.

But no farmer ever does.

 

[Frodo]

Basically, you'd need to show that it evaporates, goes straight up into a cloud, then rains directly back into the local water catchment area...

You shoutd be a consultant for the WA Water Authority.

They think that the Perth Metro rainfall goes straight into the dams in the hills

Just see the newspaper ads!!

 

[funkyfreo]

You shoutd be a consultant for the WA Water Authority.

They think that the Perth Metro rainfall goes straight into the dams in the hills

Just see the newspaper ads!!

This is annoying yes. Who gives a rats what Perth Metro Bureau rainfall is.

We have the stats, should publish averages as the average for the dam catchments, and compare to those averages historically. A far better indication of rainfall. And not hard to do at all mathematically.

 

[Mr Q]

Perth Metro rainfall is a fairly good indicator of the relative rainfall in the catchment areas for the dams.... strictly speaking, the catchment areas get more (by about 25-30%), but as a general rule, when it rains in the CBD it's likely to rain at Bickley or Karnet and vice versa. They're not that far from each other that the weather situation's that different, given that our rain is 90% frontal - it's very unlikely that trends relevant to Perth would not be relevant to places within 100km of Perth.

Also, giving Perth Metro rainfall statistics gives people in the city an idea of how much rain might have fallen on their garden, thus giving them some useful statistics about whether there's been enough rain to not need to water.

FWIW, Perth Metro's average is about 860, while Karnet is just under 1200 and Bickley around 1100 (and they're two of the three average wettest reporting stations in WA, after Kalumburu)

 

[funkyfreo]

But an individual guage is reasonably likely to be unrepresentative of a catchment wide approach. So giving a catchment wide yearly total compared to a catchment wide average is a much better way to go.

 

[Mr Q]

But an individual guage is reasonably likely to be unrepresentative of a catchment wide approach. So giving a catchment wide yearly total compared to a catchment wide average is a much better way to go.

I'd grant if you got a reading of (say) 983mm for the year for the station, you wouldn't say from that a location 10km away also got 983mm. But it would not be unreasonable to state that it got somewhere between 950mm and 1000mm. So the figures for the station over the year are usually reasonably indicative of those of the surrounding area. Thus Bickley and Karnet would be reasonable indicators of the rainfall in the catchment area for the dams near Perth.

Where it would not be indicative would be if you took figures for short periods of time (say a day). You might find a thunderstorm went right over the top, dropping 10mm quickly at the station, which didn't happen elsewhere, thus skewing the figures for that short period of time. But the impact of those sorts of events is smoothed out over long periods such as yearly stats.

On your original point though, there's no coincidence that when the Perth rainfall figures are low, the dams don't get as much water, while when the figures are high, the dams get more. That's because for the main part the same weather events that impact Perth impact the catchment areas for the dams. Given the type of rainfall we get here, there would probably be a strong correlation between the amount of water that gets into the dams and the rainfall figures of Geraldton or Bunbury compared to their averages.