Australia is well known for managing almost every drop of water available to it, to make the most of the supplies on the driest inhabited continent.
This has not gone unnoticed by California, which is now looking to the land Down Under for inspiration on ways to manage its drought.
California’s Felicia Marcus, chair of the State Water Resources Control Board reflects on how the USA’s biggest water-using state is “very, very inefficient as a society on how we use water.”
While California is a long way from copying a foreign system, state officials met in Sacramento with a delegation of Australians in December to discuss the issues at hand and came away with many ideas that are beginning to be implemented.
Bloomberg Business reports:
“The Water Board, which is expected to vote May 5 on rules for the governor’s ordered restrictions, recommends investing in technology that measures current data on water supply and demand, which Australia has made a central part of its own system. Jackson Walker’s Strickland, who favors a registry of water rights, said better data collection would be a good first step for California toward better management of the resource.
“A drought hurts everyone,” said Rooney, the Australia water trader. “It hurts irrigators. It hurts the environment. It hurts the whole ecosystem. Australia’s got a great story to tell in relation to how it’s been able to be smarter with its water management.”
It’s encouraging to see California looking to drought-management success stories in Australia to help plan ahead for the state and to see what can be done with well-implemented water utility infrastructure management plans, and water demand management planning.
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