MANAGING OUR PRECIOUS WATER RESOURCES

 

Edward Smith is the Manager of Water Supply West, a division of Southern Rural Water (SRW). The company provides water to 3 main irrigation areas including Werribee South. It manages 7 dams and reservoirs. Other sources of water include ground water and recycled water.

 

They recently completed a strategic plan which identified that the Asian population will grow to 4.8 billion by 2030. Australia has the right climate and soils and a strong agricultural sector which should result in it being a major provider to the market. SRW has a key role to play in this by supplying the right quality and quantity of water to the appropriate areas. But they need to upgrade their infrastructure to be able to satisfy future demands. The cost of the upgrade will be enormous.

 

One of the important upgrades is to convert existing open channels, which lose up to 50% of their water through evaporation, to pipelines. One-third of the Werribee South area has already been installed with pipes. The work will be completed over the next 5 years. Another important objective is to reduce the salinity levels of their recycled water in order to retain the quality of the final product.

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