Households tap into new water habits

Melbourne and Brisbane are among the country’s thriftiest water users.

Frances Thornton watering the garden with her daughter Isla, 3, and son Orry, 19 months, in Perth. Picture: Richard Wainwright

The millennium drought has broken but good water habits have persisted in Melbourne and Brisbane, where residents use about half the amount of water used by Perth residents.

Monash University researchers studying water consumption in water-sensitive cities over the past 14 years have found residents in Melbourne to be the country’s most prudent, while Perth has emerged as the most profligate.

The results will be presented this week at the Ecocity World Summit in Melbourne, an international forum headlined by ­former US vice-president Al Gore addressing issues relating to planning, cities and the environment.

Australia is considered to be at high risk of water scarcity, withdrawing 40 to 80 per cent of water relative to the available annual ­renewable supply.

Monash University associate professor and study author Jo Lindsay said governments in each state had made the biggest difference to residents’ water habits, with local councils and state governments using high-profile ad campaigns.

“People saw quite a browning off of the suburbs ... people couldn’t water lawns, and so that’s fed into the cultural imagination,” Dr Lindsay said of Melbourne and Brisbane during the drought from 2006 and 2010.

“And because of that, people are still very conscious of water consumption.”

Residents in Perth now use about 340 litres per person a day, compared with about 166L in Melbourne and 194L a day in southeast Queensland.

The study tested more than 5000 families and households and found Melbourne residents were still conscious of their water use after drought and accepted water-saving as part of city life.

For some residents, that means planting drought-resistant gardens.

“We live in the inner city and the drought didn’t really affect us, but now that we’ve got a garden we wanted something that would survive a drought,” Melbourne resident Susie Singh said from her largely paved garden in the heart of Melbourne.

Susie Singh in her drought-resistant garden in Melbourne. Picture: Aaron Francis

Brisbane residents were characterised as “responsive water users” after experiencing the millennium drought and then widespread flooding.

The West Australian government had been more “timid” in ­enforcing restrictions or encouraging attitudes to change, she said, noting a tendency to rely on “technical solutions” including desalination and backyard water bores to add to the supply.

“People just sink bores,” Dr Lindsay said. “And the thing about all these technical solutions is that people accept recycled water, and they’re not really conscientious about saving water.”

Perth residents Frances Thornton and her husband ­Alistair are trying to cut water and electricity use at their home in the eastern Perth suburb of Roleystone, where they have a system that diverts wastewater from the house to the garden.

But they admit that water is a way of life, and have established a big, lush garden with fruit trees, and are planning to install a pool.

Ms Thornton is open about the water demands of a house with children aged three and 19 months — washing clothes is a never-ending task. Soon they will have solar panels on their roof. “We are becoming more environ­mentally conscious,” she said.