Joining dots on water security
I read this article on the weekend about expected water shortages in coming years where I live. Inflows to reservoirs are 'down 53% in the past 30-40 years' which is a big problem when you factor in population growth and climate change. Infrastructure Victoria is thus starting to talk about recycling wastewater for drinking. I can get behind that, and it's good to see IV working to move the Overton window.
But it got me thinking about other factors involved here. On the demand side, water use is driven in part by population and since Australia's fertility rate has been below replacement levels since 1975, population growth, and hence rising water consumption, is largely driven by immigration. Yet the Federal Government's Migration Strategy doesn't even mention water. Similarly, internal migration to regional areas is driven in part by housing affordability, which is arguably more a policy failure than a supply constraint, but again water security doesn’t seem to come into it.
This isn't an argument against migration, but for joining the dots. If we are planning for continued population growth, we need to be explicit about the resources needed to support it.
AI datacentres are another driver of water consumption. Last July, for example, it was reported that Greater Western Water was reviewing applications from datacentres to use nearly 20 billion litres of water a year, enough for 330,000 people. Digital infrastructure is sometimes treated as low-impact, but its physical footprint is very real.
More interesting, I think, is the supply side. Forests bring rain, (see here and, for those interested in emerging theories, here), not to mention many other benefits. Falkenmark and Rockström wrote a great paper twenty years ago talking about the need to consider both blue-water (surface flows, aquifers, etc) and green-water resources (i.e., the moisture in the soil, plants and atmosphere) in water resource management, and to integrate both land and water resource management.
If we take that seriously, we have to ask where is the federal reforestation and land-use policy that coordinates efforts between states, water corporations, farmers and others to stabilise catchment and inflows? How do we ensure decisions around agriculture, forestry, urban development, migration and digital infrastructure are based on a shared understanding of biophysical limits, rather than in separate silos?
What connects these factors? They are all externalities to traditional water planning, yet they dramatically affect water security. Water management should not be looked at in isolation. As rainfall patterns change, it has to be considered in light of other policies, even if it's not immediately obvious they are related.
This kind of cross-sector view is harder than pulling a single policy lever like 'build a recycling plant', but without it we won't solve the underlying issue. If your organisation is grappling with water security, climate adaptation, or infrastructure planning that needs to account for these kinds of interconnections, let's talk.
