Western Sydney faces water crisis, scientists warn
By PAUL BIBBY, URBAN AFFAIRS
November 7, 2009 THE State Government must consider curbing population growth in western Sydney because there will not be enough water to sustain agriculture, recreation and environmental flows in the region, scientists say. More than 600,000 extra residents will live in western Sydney by 2031, according to the State Government’s Metropolitan Strategy. But scientists working for the water strategy group WISER say there will be only just enough water for drinking and bathing, leaving little for the region’s market gardens, playing fields, and the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system. This would have serious consequences for health and quality of life in the region, the scientists say, and the Government needs to reconsider the release of land for housing or dramatically increase water harvesting and recycling. ”Having healthy rivers, locally grown food, useable playing fields – these things are vital to people’s happiness and they must be part of the thinking when we make plans for Sydney’s future,” said Associate Professor Basant Maheshwari, from the University of Western Sydney’s School of Natural Sciences. ”One of the solutions is to draw back on the expansion into western Sydney and consider that people will have to live elsewhere.” The scientists based their claims on a study of water use in the South Creek catchment area – a swathe of suburbia stretching across the Blacktown, Camden, Hawkesbury, Liverpool and Penrith council areas. Drawing on current water use statistics and the Government’s own growth projections, the researchers calculated that the use of potable or drinking-quality water will increase to unsustainable levels. ”In 2031 the population of the South Creek Catchment will be using 91 gigalitres of drinking quality water each year instead of 41 gigalitres as they are now, and 16 gigalitres of non-potable water instead of 12,” Dr Maheshwari said. ”If you extrapolate that across the region, there will only be just enough available for general domestic use and very little for agriculture and other outdoor uses such as parks and playing fields.” …
