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You have to love water. Water is, without doubt, the most incredible substance we know. All life depends on it. Although water covers three quarters of our Earth’s surface, the freshwater that so much of life depends upon only makes up 1% of this water – just a tiny sliver scattered on this earth to support us all.

'Water, water every where, nor any drop to drink.'

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 1799

MYTHS

There is more than enough water to go around. We can drain our rivers at will and they always recover. We use water so wisely that we can’t possibly find any more savings.

FACTS

Fresh water is our most precious resource on earth. It is the essential ingredient for life on earth. We use it in almost everything we do. We depend on it for drinking, eating, energy and transport. We have become so used to its seeming abundance that, like a loving mum, we have come to take it for granted.

In Melbourne water levels in our dams are at historical lows. We have not even had an average rainfall for since 1996. We now have a new average much lower than our historical records. Our farms are getting drier, the runoff into our dams is slowing down – we have less water for everything.

Melbourne households are terrible at conserving water. Consider for a moment the recent global study by international water experts Hoekstra and Chapagain. They found that Victorian households held the worst record for water consumption. On average, each Melburnian uses 341,000 litres of water each year – that’s around 8 backyard swimming pools. We are the most carefree by a good distance on the driest continent on the planet! The closest to us is Canada in distant second with 279,000 litres per year. The Americans use 217,000 litres per person, the Chinese 26,000 and Bangladesh just 16,000 litres (half a backyard pool). The world average is 57,000 litres. We need to lift our game.

Using water tanks to capture all the rainfall from our roofs is a great start. Recycling our stormwater and wastewater would be a brilliant. Currently most of it just gets washed down the drain.

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