1 March weekly water update

	Target	Actual
March water use to date	1 billion litres	1 billion litres
Dam storage levels	N/A	49 per cent
Cumulative streamflow into dams	181 billion litres (Post 1975 May to January average)	149 billion litres
March rainfall to date	21 mm (March mean rainfall 1994-2017)   19.5 mm (March average rainfall 1876-2016)	0 mm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Note: 1 billion litres = approx. 400 Olympic swimming pools.  Please note these figures are rounded (except for rainfall) to the nearest whole number.

 

Water use

 

Average daily water use over the last week was 1 billion litres, which was slightly below the forecast of 1.005 billion litres.

 

Daily water use for the last five days
Date	Actual water use – litres	Forecast – litres
Friday, 1 March 2019	933,000,000	995,000,000
Thursday, 28 February 2019	1,019,000,000	995,000,000
Wednesday, 27 February 2019	1,028,000,000	995,000,000
Tuesday, 26 February 2019	1,025,000,000	995,000,000
Monday, 25 February 2019	1,070,000,000	1,016,000,000

Note: water use above is calculated up to 8am each day for the previous 24 hour period

 

Since 1 July 2018, we have used 194 billion litres of water - this is about 4 billion litres above what we had forecast for this period. 

Dam level (total for 15 dams)

The dam storage level has not changed over the past week, sitting at 50 per cent* of full capacity.

 

*Please note some dams are filled from different sources - dam levels include the transfer of groundwater and desalinated seawater from treatment plants as well as streamflow (that comes from rainfall).  Dam levels are no longer an accurate indicator of the health of Perth's water supply situation.

 

Streamflow (total for 15 dams)

 

From 1 May 2018 to 1 March 2019 the dams had received 149 billion litres of streamflow.  The post-1975 average for the May to February period is 185 billion litres.

 

Sprinkler roster compliance

 

The two-day-a-week sprinkler roster now applies across Perth, so make sure your sprinklers are programmed for your rostered water days and only to come on once, either before 9am or after 6pm.

 

Our team of inspectors issued 129 warnings and 107 fines this week.  Since 1 January 2019, we have taken a total of 1978 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 1868 actions for the same period in 2018.

 

Annual rainfall

 

Perth has received 7.4 mm of rainfall since 1 January 2019.  Average rainfall for this period (1994-2017) is 50.7 mm.

 

General water news

 

This week we took Channel 7 reporter Jordan Cutts out on sprinkler patrol with one of our water efficiency inspectors, George.   George has been working with the Water Corporation for over 46 years and is a passionate advocate for saving water.

 

We hope to see this story go to air in the next few days – which will be a great reminder for people to stick to their watering days.