Weekly water update 4 October 2019

 

	Target	Actual
October water use to date	3 billion litres	3 billion litres
Dam storage levels	N/A	52 per cent
Weekly streamflow into dams	N/A	37.7 billion litres
October rainfall to date	38.7 mm (October average rainfall 1994-2017)	2.4 mm
Note: 1 billion litres = approx. 400 Olympic swimming pools. Please note the figures in this table are rounded (except for rainfall) to the nearest whole number.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Water use

 

Average water use over the last week was 753 million litres per day, which was above the forecast of 673 million litres.

 

Daily water use for the last five days
Date	Actual water use (million litres)	Forecast (million litres)
4/10/2019	745	684
3/10/2019	795	684
2/10/2019	742	684
1/10/2019	761	684
30/09/2019	840	657
Note: water use is calculated up to 8am each day for the previous 24 hour period

 

Since 1 July 2019, we have used 59.3 billion litres of water – which is over the forecast for this period.

 

Dam level (total for 15 dams)

The dam storage levels have remained stable this week and are sitting at a combined 51.9 per cent* of full capacity.

 

*Please note some dams are filled from different sources - dam levels include the transfer of groundwater and desalinated seawater from treatment plants as well as streamflow (that comes from rainfall).  As we use many different sources of water, dams are no longer an accurate indicator of the health of Perth's overall water supply situation.

 

Streamflow (total for 15 dams)

 

From 1 May 2019 the dams have received 37.7 billion litres of streamflow.  The post-1975 average for the May to April period (called the streamflow year) is 183.9 billion litres.

 

Sprinkler roster compliance

 

The two-day a week sprinkler roster now applies but there’s no need to rush out and turn your sprinklers on as gardens are still getting plenty of water from rainfall.

 

Since 1 January 2019, we have taken a total of 6527 actions (warnings + fines) compared with 6515 actions for the same period in 2018.

 

Annual rainfall

 

Perth has received 544 mm of rainfall since 1 January 2019. The cumulative average (1994-2017) rainfall for the January to October period is 697.9 mm.

 

General water news

 

The rain we’ve received today is very welcome with the month of September in Perth being the driest on record, with just 31.4mm of rain received.

 

This is a great opportunity to keep your sprinklers off over the weekend and when it fines up again remember to stick to the two-day-per week sprinkler roster.

 

The two-day-per week roster was introduced in 2001 and was made permanent in October 2007.

 

In 2017-18 alone, the sprinkler roster saved an estimated 52.7 billion litres of drinking water.