Perth metro weekly water update - 10 May 2019

 

	Target	Actual
May water use to date	7 billion litres	8 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)	9.4 mm
Note: 1 billion litres = approx. 400 Olympic swimming pools. Please note the figures in this table are rounded (except for rainfall) to the nearest whole number.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water use

 

Average water use over the last week was 742,000,000 litres (742 million litres) per day, which was above the forecast of 733,000,000 litres (733 million litres).

 

Daily water use for the last five days
Date	Actual water use – litres	Forecast – litres
10/05/2019	764,000,000	722,000,000
9/05/2019	750,000,000	722,000,000
8/05/2019	730,000,000	722,000,000
7/05/2019	706,000,000	722,000,000
6/05/2019	781,000,000	747,000,000
Note: water use is calculated up to 8am each day for the previous 24 hour period

 

Since 1 July 2018, we have used 253 billion litres of water - this is about three billion litres above what we had forecast.  

 

Dam levels (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).  As we use many different sources of water, dams 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 0.3 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 64 warnings and 59 fines this week.  Since 1 January 2019, we have taken a total of 3281 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 3381 actions for the same period in 2018.

 

Annual rainfall

 

Perth has received 66.4 mm of rainfall since 1 January 2019.  The cumulative average (1994-2017) rainfall for the January to May period is 176.6 mm.

 

General water news

 

This week we draw more inspiration from Californian Blogger Peter Weeks at https://www.thedailygardener.com/

 

Peter has a great article on this blog titled “Why bother saving water?”   That’s a question we get asked regularly here at the Water Corporation.  We’ve reproduced Peter’s blog post below…

 

Before we look at how to save water, let’s just think for a moment about why we should take the trouble. There are several good reasons why we should all make more effort to limit the amount of water we use, and here are some of the most important. For many people, an important reason will be simply to save money. If you pay according to how much water you consume, you can greatly reduce your expenses by conserving water. Then there is the ecological aspect. During periods of peak demand, the natural environment is also under the greatest water stress. By using less, we do our part to help protect nature. Even if you care nothing for taking care of our planet, by using too much water when less is available, you also play a part in driving up prices. If everybody tries to use a little less, it will contribute to keeping prices down. Finally, there is the fact that water is now a dwindling resource. With climate change, drought conditions seem to be becoming more common and more severe. In the coming years, we may all have to adapt to water being much scarcer than it is now.