The Department of Water is reforming the way we manage water.
The need for change is highlighted by the increasing number of issues and challenges that arise with the use and supply of water.
Current water management systems were designed to meet the needs of a sparsely-populated developing state.
These are no longer sufficient to address the full scope of challenges of modern-day water management, specifically our ever-increasing population and climate variability.
Some of the key challenges are:
- Water becoming scarce in the areas of the state where it is most needed, made worse by reduced rainfall and climate variability.
- Signs of one person's water use impacting on another's water use (including availability and quality of water) beginning to emerge.
- The rising costs of supplying water delaying, and sometimes terminating, potentially profitable developments and business ventures.
- Banks and lenders beginning to consider water as 'risky', affecting financing for new, potentially profitable projects.
- Water essential to a flourishing environment is under pressure.
- Signs of stress on our waterways from increasing abstraction, direct development impacts and drainage of nutrients from developments, emerging.
Goal number two of our strategic plan, is to achieve contemporary and adaptive water management in Western Australia.
Through water reform, we will deliver a series of policies, systems and internal processes capable of managing water in the present day, and flexible and progressive enough to manage water into the future.
The government is currently considering detailed policy and legislation reform that will enable further water reforms. The Discussion Paper, Water Resources Management Options outlines the options available for legislative reform.
Western Australia has also joined other states in a national commitment to water reform through becoming a signatory to the National Water Initiative.
By supporting this initiative and implementing water reform, Western Australia is more likely to obtain national recognition of the state's water issues and national funding to support water projects.