REGION WILL NEED NEW WATER SUPPLY BY 2030:

THE Geelong region will need to find an additional supply of water within 10 years.

The challenging forecast comes as the region experiences the pinching effect of declining rainfall and increasing demand due to rapid growth and a hotter, drier climate.

One of the region’s main catchments, the West Barwon Reservoir, has seen its average annual inflow drop almost a third from its pre-1997 annual average. Barwon Water managing director Tracey Slatter said the region was seeing the impacts of climate change which weather scientists were predicting would lead to a drier climate in Victoria in the next decades.

“The scary thing is that it’s already happening,” Ms Slatter said. “And with less rainfall there is a multiplier effect with inflows into reservoirs and rivers.”

The West Barwon Reservoir in the Otways has gone from average inflows of 28.5 gigalitres a year in the years before 1997, down to a yearly average of 19.5 gigalitres in the years since. The Lal Lal Reservoir, which forms part of the Moorabool catchment and supplies water to parts of Geelong, has seen a 62 per cent reduction in average annual inflows in that time.

“These reductions are being experienced in all of our reservoirs across the region,” Ms Slatter said.

Describing the conditions as the “new norm” and not a short-term phenomena, Ms Slatter said every water corporation was planing its future on post-1997 levels, while stress testing for the possibility of even tougher conditions.

Ms Slatter’s comments came as she launched the Water For Our Future campaign that has been quickly backed as a priority project by advocacy group G21.

The campaign seeks community input into its search for water supply options that don’t rely on rain and for innovative ways to save water.

Ms Slatter said history provided some encouragement on the community’s ability to adapt with total water use down by 20 per cent since the 1980s, despite the population almost doubling from 163,000 to more than 300,000.

But the past 10 years has seen total water use rise in response to the combination of population growth and the hotter conditions leading to increased demand, in particular in residential consumption with more water being used per person, per day.

“We know that we are going to have to have a major augmentation, an additional source of water for our region, as early as 2029,” Ms Slatter said. “We will plan calmly for that, it’s not a crisis, but it’s important … because if we value our environment, we will need to think of more diverse sources of water.”

Information on the development of Barwon Water’s next strategy and the community engagement opportunities can be found at waterfuture.barwonwater.vic.gov.au