Weekly water update - 28 June

	Target	Actual
June water use to date	16 billion litres	17 billion litres
Dam storage levels	N/A	45 per cent
Weekly streamflow into dams	N/A	1.2 billion litres
June rainfall to date	126.9 mm (June average rainfall 1994-2017)   173.1 mm (June average rainfall 1876-2016)	201 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 580,000,000 litres (580 million litres) per day, which was above the forecast of 563,000,000 litres (563 million litres).

 

Daily water use for the last five days
Date	Actual water use – litres	Forecast – litres
28/06/2019	576,000,000	549,000,000
27/06/2019	548,000,000	549,000,000
26/06/2019	578,000,000	549,000,000
25/06/2019	591,000,000	549,000,000
24/06/2019	610,000,000	581,000,000
23/06/2019	572,000,000	581,000,000
Note: water use is calculated up to 8am each day for the previous 24 hour period

 

Since 1 July 2018, we have used 285 billion litres of water - this is about four billion litres above what we had forecast. 

 

Dam level (total for 15 dams)

 

The dam storage levels have remained stable this 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 2.6 billion litres of streamflow.  The post-1975 average for the May to April period is 187.2 billion litres.

 

Sprinkler roster compliance

 

The Winter Sprinkler Switch-off is now in place.  This means you need to ensure your sprinklers are kept switched off until the end of winter.

 

Our team of inspectors issued 184 warnings and 20 fines this week.  Since 1 January 2019, we have taken a total of 4506 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 4793 actions for the same period in 2018.

 

Annual rainfall

 

Perth has received 276.6 mm of rainfall since 1 January 2019.  The cumulative average (1994-2017) rainfall for the January to June period is 303.5 mm.

 

General water news

 

We are almost one month in to the annual Winter Sprinkler Switch-off, which applies to all scheme and bore water users in Perth, Mandurah and some parts of the South We.

Despite Perth experiencing its wettest June in 14 years, 2019 still remains the driest of the past five years so it is important to continue to save precious water.

Unfortunately, this week we have seen an increase in people still using their sprinklers during the Switch-off. If you haven’t already, we urge you to turn your sprinklers off between June and August or risk a $100 fine.  

The permanent water efficiency program, now in its ninth year, has saved about 40 billion litres of water since 2010 - enough to fill Optus Stadium 40 times.