Saving water

If we are surrounded by oceans, why do Australians worry so much about water?

Water – drinkable water – is a precious and limited resource. In fact, less than two per cent of the world’s water is fit for humans to use.

With a steadily growing world population, six and a half billion at the last count , it’s no wonder that water is a resource that humanity wants to conserve and use responsibly.

In Australia, our long hot summers can encourage extravagant use of water. Gardens and swimming pools can be big water users.

There are several ways we can address our needs for water now and into the future:

• We can save water by reducing the amount of water we use
• We can recycle water to make it go further
• We can develop responsible water management strategies.

Did you know

One way to recycle water is by making ocean water drinkable.

Called desalination, the process involves removing dissolved salt from seawater to make it drinkable.

There are now more than 7,500 desalinisation plants in operation around the world. Over 60 percent of these plants are in the Middle East .

However Australia only makes very limited use of the process, preferring to rely on our natural water supply.