How Australians survived a 13-year drought by going low-tech
If you think California鈥檚 ,听try 13 years. That鈥檚 how long southeastern Australia suffered through bone-dry times.
But it survived. When the so-called Millennium Drought ended in 2009, residents of Melbourne, Australia鈥檚 second-largest city, were using half the amount of water they had when it began.
A group of researchers from the University of California, Irvine, set out to investigate how Melbourne, a city of 4.3 million people, dramatically cut water consumption, and whether the city鈥檚 experience might hold lessons for California and other drought-stricken regions.
The short answer? Salvation came from a $2,000 rainwater tank rather than a $6 billion desalinization plant.
As the Millennium Drought dragged on, authorities approved the construction of costly infrastructure projects similar to those now being considered听in California, including that expensive desalinization plant. 听But the researchers found that conservation and recycling were the keys that got Melbourne through year after rainless year, according to the听听published May 26 in the journal听WIREs Water.听
Melbourne residents took advantage of government rebates for home rainwater tanks to capture runoff from roofs, using it to water plants and flush toilets. The state of Victoria also changed the building code to require the tanks in all new homes. 听
By 2009, about a third of homes were capturing free water from the sky and supplying 2 percent of Melbourne鈥檚 potable water.
The government also offered subsidies for purchase of water-efficient shower heads, toilets, and washing machines, which combined cut Melbourne鈥檚 water use by 4 percent a year.
Since more storm water runoff courses through the city and flows into rivers and the ocean than residents use in a year, the government moved to capture, treat, and reuse some runoff for irrigation. The city also ramped up the use of gray water and recycled water from sewage treatment plants.
As in California, Melbourne officials 听but did not raise water rates.
As for that $6 billion desalinization plant, today it serves as a very expensive insurance policy against the return of dry times. The facility听was completed in 2012鈥攖hree years after the drought ended鈥攁nd has not produced a drop of water. 听
鈥淭he main lesson is that a lot can be done with conservation, and there are so many ways to do that,鈥� said Stanley Grant, a study co-author and a civil and environmental engineer at UC Irvine.
鈥淚n Southern California, we鈥檙e addicted to technology," he added. "We expect aqueducts to save us, and those days are gone. The modern-day answer people are looking to is desalinization, but that is expensive and very energy-intensive.鈥�
Grant said some of Australia鈥檚 low-tech solutions, such as rainwater tanks, would have limited utility in California鈥檚 Mediterranean climate, where rain comes, if at all, during a few months in winter.
鈥淭he real problem is in the summer when you need the water, it has rained six months earlier,鈥� he said.
Capturing storm water and what Grant calls 鈥渦rban slobber鈥濃�攄ry-weather runoff鈥攈olds more promise. 鈥淭he ultimate source of urban slobber in a lot of cases is imported water,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat water ends up finding its way to rivers through sewage treatment plants, overwatering of lawns, washing of cars, and other activities in the urban landscape.鈥�
鈥淚t seems to be a real missed opportunity,鈥� he added. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a year-round source, but we don鈥檛 do anything to capture and reuse it.鈥�
Some cities in California . On Tuesday, the听Metropolitan Water District of Southern California approved paying homeowners as much as $6,000 to rip out their water-thirsty lawns and plant drought-tolerant landscaping.
The key, said Grant, is to seize the moment to make lasting changes in residents鈥� behavior as Melbourne apparently has done.
鈥淥ne lesson for other cities is that major droughts, if serious enough and long-lasting enough," the study stated, "create opportunities for policymakers, as well as pose challenges."
鈥� Todd Woody is TakePart's senior editor for environment and wildlife.听
鈥� at , a leading source of socially relevant news, features, opinion, entertainment, and information 鈥� all focused on the issues that shape our lives. Visit .
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