A study by UNSW engineers suggests we should get used to water restrictions as modelling predicts inflows into natural reservoirs are set to decrease.
The frequency of water restrictions in Australia is set to treble by the end of the century after modelling by UNSW Sydney engineers showed climate change will significantly reduce inflows into catchment areas.
Researchers from the University’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering say reservoir reliability – or the frequency with which a reservoir can supply surrounding urban or rural populations without invoking water restrictions – will fall across the country as we head towards the end of the century. In other words, if a current reservoir is designed to face water restrictions 10% of the time today, by the end of this century this figure will rise to 30%
Study co-author Professor Ashish Sharma says the recent study published in the Water Resources Research journal confirms the hypothesis of the group’s past research that found that the frequent flood events that used to fill dams and catchment areas are now supplying less and less water to those areas.
Read more at University of New South Wales, Sydney
Photo credit: Maksym Kozlenko via Wikimedia Commons
