Within months, a city sitting on the same line of latitude as Sydney could become the first major metropolis in modern history to run out of water.
When Cape Town hits its projected "Day Zero", millions of taps will suddenly run dry. Schools, hospitals and other institutions will retain access to some water but households will be cut off completely.
Fears that tourism could dry up amid Cape Town water crisis
As Cape Town's residents are forced into stricter measures to preserve water, there are fears that the flow of tourists, a vital part of the city's economy, could also dry up.
Obviously Sydney enjoys a range of advantages over Cape Town.
But the factors that have led to the South African city's impending crisis should ring familiar: harsher droughts driven by a changing climate, an infrastructure backlog and rapidly growing demand from a booming population. All apply to Sydney.
Yet despite this you're more likely to hear Sydneysiders talking about traffic or property prices than water.
Water policy seems to have slipped from our civic discourse. Memories of the millennial drought have faded as our reservoirs have filled with years of above-average rainfall.
But this period of water wealth should not delude us. We will enter a period of sustained water shortage at some point in the not-too-distant future.
Which is why we should start talking about how we deal with water now, in the relative calm before the inevitable crisis.
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| Warragamba Dam in Sydney during the 2005 drought. Photo: Steve Christo |
And perhaps in a city as relatively privileged as Sydney, things will never get "Day Zero" bad. But consider that during the last Sydney drought, dam levels approached 30 per cent.
Below this and we would have been talking about upgrading water restrictions to complete bans on watering any grass – from front lawns to sports grounds. Fountains and water features would have been turned off.
Fifteen per cent is the mark at which it becomes difficult to extract drinking water.
And while it is worth noting that the energy-intensive Kurnell Desalination Plan adds extra capacity to the region, Sydney's relationship with water nevertheless needs to extend beyond pipes, dams and treatment plants. Water can and should be at the centre of our urban landscape discussion.
Our city is suffering from a rapidly growing heat island effect, as the hard roofing and paving of urbanisation engulfs the Sydney basin. This extra heat is not only uncomfortable, it’s often lethal. The acute heatwave that hit in 2009 will forever be associated with the Victorian Black Saturday bushfires, which claimed 173 lives. But it is also estimated that during January and February of that year, 374 people – mainly the young and the old – died in south-eastern Australia from heat-related causes not associated with bushfires.
The danger and unpleasantness of heat was not taken into consideration during Sydney's previous attempts to control and regulate water. Natural rivulets and streams were covered over; historic water courses diverted.
Our native habitats, all of which rely on access to surface water, are now endangered. Once babbling brooks and streams are now stagnant and weed infested. The city is crisscrossed with open drainage canals and swales.
We have become estranged from our local environments. But it need not be this way. We can restore waterways and turn them from fenced-off eyesores into linear urban parks, providing a sequence of accessible paths for pedestrians and cyclists.
We can build on the government's efforts to create a network of parks and green space, by adding a "blue grid" of waterways and streams. This would be expensive. But it would be worth it. It would significantly reduce ambient heat in our urban environments, reduce stress and improve our mental health. Water and vegetation in urban environments creates cooling through shading, evaporation and evapotranspiration from plants. As climate change continues to heat our planet this will become ever increasingly important.
It would also provide a social licence for population density done well, by offering quality open space to people living without backyards of their own.
And if making our city happier and healthier isn't reward enough, consider the more instantly quantifiable benefits.
Following the restoration of a wetland in the Perth suburb of Lynwood, median home values within 200 metres increased by between $17,000 and $26,000 above the trend increase for the area. In Sydney, restoring the natural banks of Cooks River raised nearby property values by up to 9 per cent above trend.
Meanwhile the cost of inaction was recently highlighted by Infrastructure Australia, who predicted annual water bills of $2500 by 2040.
The incredible urban value of water has been powerfully driven home to me over the past three months after taking leave to stay home with my one-year-old.
Steel Park, near my inner west home, has a waterplay area for the kids under big trees adjacent to the Cooks River. As the temperature rose to 40 degrees and beyond this summer, this swiftly became our go-to place. Between the water and the trees, the temperature in this park was 10 degrees cooler than the rest of our neighbourhood. It's a godsend.
There is no reason that most of Sydney should have to live without similar amenity.
*Eamon Waterford is the director of policy for the Committee for Sydney.
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