Quote:
Originally Posted by ispom
that year has rained plentiful exceptionally, but the
rainwater is valuable in my landscape in the most years,
therefore I built a new rainwater gathering point beside my observatory:
in Australia the water is short as well, how do you deal with it?
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Hi,
Best wishes from Sydney. Yes, rainfall patterns have given us a severe drought in many areas of Oz just lately, and outside cities there is the additional difficulty of political arguments over water rights between States and the Federal Govt.
There are currently water consumption restrictions here in Sydney, and our main reservoir, the Warragamba dam, fell to about 33% of capacity. It is better now, but water restrictions remain, no hosing of cars or any hard surface, and garden watering 2 days per week.
Several country towns ran out of water completely, and had to have it brought in by tanker. Drought is not new to Oz though, when we declared ourselves a unified nation in 1901 there was immediately a big drought, called the Federation drought.
We do not recycle our water to any great extent here, and there is currently a big controversy over the building of a desalination plant in Sydney, which will be powered mainly by coal-fired power (we have no nuclear power stations but do have a lot of hydro power generation).
There is an increasing acceptance that rainwater tanks, which are universal in rural areas, should be installed in urban areas too. I am thinking of it for uses where piped water is restricted. It is forecast that the cost of piped water will rise by 15% soon, but it is very cheap in real terms presently.
Cheers