SUSTAINABLE WATER USE

THE AUSTRALIAN WATER INDUSTRY ROADMAP PROJECT

 
 
The Sustainable Water Use Task force has recently completed the Australian Water Industry Roadmap project (AWIR). The AWIR Project has provided a sustainable industry response to competing and changing demands, particularly delivery, security, trading, supply and treatment issues, for the Australian water industry. The final Roadmap has been able to demonstrate, through best practice case examples, strategic directions for the different sectors of the water industry,including rural and urban sectors. The final Roadmap was launched on 15 June 2005 at 11.00am at Parliament House Canberra. The Roadmap can be downloaded as a PDF under the menu on the home page.


DEVELOPMENT OF THE TASK FORCE

A task force to deal with water related issues was established following a presentation by the Barton Group to the Water Services Association of Australia meeting in Brisbane on August 5th 2002. Paul Perkins and Anne Howe attended.

Content of the WSAA presentation

Brief outline of the Barton group and its objectives;

Water sector as a key participant in environment industry, (>50 %)

Promote
Environmental accounting - need to apply facts to business planning
  Contestability of services - clustering a way forward
  Water sector investment - wastewater technology in utilities
  EMS
  Leverage off Govt programs NHT and catchment management


Expected outcomes

Invitation to WSAA members to join Task force to Barton group waster sector task force

  Barton group offer to back State based initiatives of big utilities
  Need to position Water industry as society delivering on sustainability
  Barton group to assist with promotion of demonstration sites for new technologies

Program for Water Sector Task Force

The plan is to engage the municipal water authorities association - this to be done in conjunction with Australian Water Association.

Important to facilitate the conservation technologies into small utilities,

Small utilities have weak economies of scale, but offer more scope for partnerships.

Medium utilities are mostly inland cities with tough effluent standards, and efficiency opportunities in agribusiness and processing;

Need to engage state water policy agencies, as these are the knowledge resource for medium size utilities.

A meeting of the Task Force is planned for late September. Proposed members are:AWA, WSAA secretariat, The Water Forum (three crc's) companies (Gold Coast Water, Hunter water, EPA's), CSIRO, Land and Water Australia.

The Australian Water Industry Roadmapping Project is now available and can be downloaded as a pdf at the left (under the menu).