Amid the worst drought on record, Auckland Council this week signed off mandatory restrictions for the first time since 1994, when the region’s supply dams dropped as low as 29 per cent. Then, there was no emergency drought back-up, and in response the council sought consent to supplement its dams by taking 150 million litres a day (MLD) from the Waikato River. Meanwhile, the city grows – over 50 per cent since 1994 – and with climate change bringing increasingly dry summers, Auckland’s thirst increases as the supply shrinks.
When full, the dams in the Hunua and Waitākere ranges – the region’s rainmakers – contain about eight months’ water for the city’s 1.6 million inhabitants, generally providing about two-thirds of daily usage, which averages about 450MLD a day. In Perth – which has seen dramatic decreases in rainfall due to climate change – about 14 billion litres of recycled water is added to the city’s aquifers every year, with work to double capacity due for completion next year.
The town of Toowoomba in central Queensland is a case in point, where the community wholeheartedly rejected the idea, despite it being commonplace in other parts of Australia. “But water is going to become a bigger issue. There is a view that New Zealand has a lot of water, but areas like Auckland will be seeing less rain with climate change. “It’s not the distant future – it is happening now, and we need to be having these mature conversations.”
Source: NZ Herald
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