Water Cycle Management
1 Introduction
Continued traditional urban development in Australia's coastal cities will rapidly approach the limits of sustainability. New urban developments are increasing the pressure on the environment through the need to develop new drinkable water supplies and the discharge of polluted stormwater and treated wastewater into receiving waterways and the ocean. Unless integrated strategies to manage the total water available from all sources is adopted, new urban developments in our cities will rapidly become unsustainable.
Inland cities which are dependant on inland waterways for water supply, disposal of stormwater and wastewater, and water based recreation, are also increasingly experiencing water quality problems which to a significant degree are due to the environmental pressure exerted by expanding urban development.
The quantity of stormwater runoff from our cities is about equal to the amount of drinkable water which is supplied, so there is a potential for expanded collection, storage and re-use of stormwater for non-drinking purposes.
Similarly there is the potential to reduce the demand for drinkable water by up to 50% through the re-use of treated wastewater for non-drinking purposes.
Likewise, the abstraction of water from Australia's waterways for rural and agricultural use is increasingly impacting on the health of our river systems. In recent years there has been an increasingly recognition that our river systems require minimum (environmental) flows to maintain their health and that the needs of the environment require balancing with rural demands for water.
The sustainable development of Australia will be governed in part by our ability to better manage the water cycle and to develop new resources in an ecologically sustainable manner. Water engineers have a key role in implementing water cycle management. It involves integrating water balance, water...
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