Metro weekly water update for 3 May 2019

	Target	Actual
May water use to date	2 billion litres	2 billion litres
Dam storage levels	N/A	45 per cent
Cumulative streamflow into dams	0 billion litres (Post 1975 May to March average)	0 billion litres
May rainfall to date	88.7 mm (May average rainfall 1994-2017)   116.9 mm (May 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 water use over the last week was 805,000,000 litres (805 million litres) per day, which was above the forecast of 759,000,000 litres (759 million litres).

 

Daily water use for the last five days
Date	Actual water use – litres	Forecast – litres
3 May 2019	788,000,000	747,000,000
2 May 2019	770,000,000	747,000,000
1 May 2019	786,000,000	747,000,000
30 April 2019	761,000,000	747,000,000
29 April 2019	896,000,000	774,000,000

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

 

Since 1 July 2018, we have used 248 billion litres of water - this is about three billion litres above what we had forecast. 

Dam level (total for 15 dams)

The dam storage level has gone down slightly in the past week and is sitting at 45 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 overall water supply situation.

 

Streamflow (total for 15 dams)

 

From 1 May 2019 the dams have received 0.1 billion litres of streamflow.  The post-1975 average for the May to April period is 187.2 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 34 warnings and 40 fines this week.  Since 1 January 2019, we have taken a total of 3158 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 3264 actions for the same period in 2018.

 

Annual rainfall

 

Perth has received 57 mm of rainfall since 1 January 2019.  The cumulative average (1994-2017) rainfall for this period is 88.7 mm. In April Perth’s rainfall was 44 mm which was above the average of 37.2 mm.

 

General water news

 

Perth’s climate and water supply situation is quite similar to California’s in the USA but we were still a little surprised this week to receive an email from Blogger Peter Weeks who runs https://www.thedailygardener.com/

 

Peter’s blog is a mine of information on gardening and he has been using some of the water saving tips from our website to create this new section https://www.thedailygardener.com/saving-garden-water.  Peter's writing style and use of photography is very engaging and his Blog is definitely worth a read.

 

Thanks for getting in contact Peter and we wish you all the very best with your blog.