After two years of working with the community to co-design a water future that balances all of the G21 region’s needs, Barwon Water has released its draft Water for our Future Strategy for public comment.
It outlines the ways Barwon Water will meet the water needs of its community over the next 50 years as the population grows and average annual inflows into local reservoirs continue to decrease due to the long-term trend to a hotter and drier climate.
Modelling shows that Barwon Water needs to find or save up to 5 billion litres of water – over and above the 35 billion litres the region currently uses – every five years for the next 50 years. A hotter, drier climate means reservoirs are already receiving much less water on average from rainfall in their catchments.
This means Barwon Water will need to gradually shift to sources of water that are more climate resilient. The draft Water for our Future Strategy, a G21 Priority Project, sets out 24 actions over the next five years that will save water, source new water, reuse water and return water to the environment.
This includes using a combination of integrated water management, greater use of recycled water for non-drinking purposes, increasing the use of the Melbourne-Geelong pipeline and encouraging smarter water use.
In the longer-term, Barwon Water is likely to gradually transition to more climate independent sources of supply.
The draft strategy is informed by more than 600 ideas shared during Water for our Future’s community engagement, with more than 5,000 community members participating in the program to help find new sources of water and be more efficient with current water supply.
The strategy is open for community feedback and will be reviewed the Water for our Future Community Panel when it meets for the final time in late November.
The panel, which has met nine times over 18 months, comprises about 50 community representatives from across Barwon Water’s service region.
Water for our Future Strategy will be finalised at the end of March 2022.
