New South Wales Government

Department of

Environment and Climate Change

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Water

In October 2004, the NSW Government released its Metropolitan Water Plan - Meeting the Challenges: Securing Sydney's Water Future. This Plan aimed to secure water for Sydney for the next 25 years by outlining a suite of demand- and supply- side actions to address the growing imbalance between Sydney's population and water needs. The Plan identified four significant factors for planning for future management of water resources:

• population growth

• drought

• climate change

• river health

In relation to climate change, the 2004 Metropolitan Water Plan specifically noted that "the Government will commission additional research to increase understanding of the effect of climate change on Sydney's water supplies and demand for water in Sydney" and this commitment was reiterated in the 2006 Metropolitan Water Plan.

A project to achieve this outcome is called Climate Change and its Impact on Water Supply and Demand in Sydney and is a NSW and Australian Government sponsored research project conducted in collaboration between the Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Department of Water and Energy, CSIRO, Sydney Water Corporation, Sydney Catchment Authority, the Commonwealth Government and the University of New South Wales.

The study will examine the impacts of climate change on both Sydney water supplies and water demands, so the study area extends over both Sydney's drinking water catchments (Sydney Catchment Authority's area of operations) and the urban areas of Sydney where the vast majority of this drinking water is consumed (Sydney Water Corporation's area of operations). The study area is more than 20,000 km2 in size and overlaps the Hawkesbury-Nepean, Shoalhaven and Georges River basins.

The project aims to increase understanding of the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and natural climate variability on the supply of, and demand for, drinking water in Sydney and to formulate broad-brush policies for the resulting range of possible future water supply/demand balance scenarios.