Why aren there tougher water restrictions to reduce stress on the River Murray and Lower Lakes?
It is the volumes involved. The Lower Lakes require approximately 2000 GL (billions of litres) to fill, Every year the Lower Lakes evaporate approximately 700GL of water. Adelaide used a total of 200GL in 2008. So you can see that no matter how frugal the metro users are, it does not help the Lower Lakes at all, because of the huge volume of freshwater required to keep the Lower Lakes ‘fresh’. If the Lower Lakes were returned to their original state of an estuary, (ie. opening the barrages), then much less freshwater would be required since it would be a mix of fresh and seawater. A tidal estuary! Like it used to be prior to 1940.
SA Water continually provides advice to the South Australian Government on water restrictions and whether changes are needed. Water restriction levels depend on a range of factors including the amount of water flowing into local catchments and water consumption, which is monitored by SA Water each month. Since January 2007, level 3 water restrictions have been in place to help ease the pressure on the River Murray. In the two years since then, South Australians have saved 64 gigalitres. This is equivalent to about 16% of the water used by the entire Adelaide metropolitan area in an average year. Water restrictions help reduce our reliance on the River Murray and work in combination with other actions to help manage South Australia’s water sustainably.
Related Questions
- Why isn more water piped from Australias far north to supply Adelaide and relieve stress on the River Murray and the Lower Lakes?
- What irrigation programs are planned to improve water efficiency and reduce stress on the River Murray and Lower Lakes?
- Why aren there tougher water restrictions to reduce stress on the River Murray and Lower Lakes?
