Water planning 101: Stabilise the population

The Big Thirsty Australia report argues water sustainability and population growth are inextricably linked, yet water sustainability modelling ignores population growth, writes Stephen Saunders.

STABILISING THE POPULATION, argues the report Big Thirsty Australia, is the safest and cheapest avenue to meet arid Australia’s water needs. Not what the government wants to hear, is it?

Our water – and urban – planners are whizzes at supply-side solutions. But don’t engage meaningfully, with the population-demand side. Not our department, mate.

Shouldn’t a rampant population fit in with limited and heavily exploited water resources? No, Down Under, it works the other way around.

In eight informative chapters, this Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) report attempts to put P-for-population back into the water-planning equation:

'[Treasury] assumptions of water abundance are dangerously flawed. Expanded desalination, rather than being a solution, is a further symptom…Constant expansion of water infrastructure to accommodate population increase is a costly exercise in running to stand still… stable population would be by far the cheapest way to meet Australia’s water requirements…The fatalistic acceptance of official population projections has meant there is a population blind spot in Australia’s water planning.'

Big Thirsty Australia

First, the report checks water-extraction cultures and customs — from indigenous times to the present. Then fondly recalls Peter Cullen, who died in 2008.

He was an endangered species — among our water scientists. Linking “water deficits” to “rampant population growth”.

It’s not just the low rainfall, it’s low runoff — 12% of rainfall compared with 40-50% on other continents.

Yet population growth has skyrocketed after 2000, hitting 2.5% annually in 2023. At 27 million, Australia's population is suddenly eight million higher.

Whether a town or city has enough water to meet added demand is not considered.

Assuming, proliferating desalination plants can re-secure the system. Though the Millennium Drought triggered “reform”, in the Murray Darling Basin (MDB), the MDB Plan has yet to deliver the goods — for traditional owners, or others.

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“Sustainable” water security

Be wary, cautions SPA, of “sustainable” water claims.

Aussie water-planning operates on weak sustainability:

'A sliding scale where ecosystems can be incrementally diminished to accommodate the imperatives of forever growth.'

In pub parlance, she’ll be right.

Strong sustainability should be 'to prevent further loss of natural habitats and ecosystem functions'.

Stretched water resources

Half of Australia gets less than 30 cm of rainfall annually. We’ve much more variable rainfall and runoff than other continents. This century, average rainfalls have diminished, in the well-populated south-east and south-west.

Easily our biggest water user is agriculture. Though the population has doubled since 1977, remarkably, aggregate water use is said to have “slightly reduced”.

Victory laps for irrigators and planners, eh? The problem is, we’ve hit the wall.

Household water-use efficiency has barely improved since 2010. Our top six cities still get nearly 60% of their take from surface water. However, groundwater (25%) is increasingly stressed and over-allocated, with a heavier reliance on desal (12%).

The indirect water-consumption “footprints” of eastern-seaboard cities are 8-10 times higher than they use directly. If you doubled their present populations, MDB would struggle to feed them. At affordable prices, that is.

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Climate and water supply

Australia is trending hotter and drier — 2019 being the driest year on record. Inflows into west-coast dams and east-coast Murray River are declining. Extreme heat – and rain – events are increasing.

“Droughts, floods, and bushfires” damage soil, vegetation, and catchment water quality. With few viable sites left, building extra dams won’t cut it. Many regional towns have already experienced severe water shortages.

Compared with our 2000-year paleoclimates, the 20th Century looks “wettish” and the Millennium Drought “moderate”. Australia endured mega-droughts in these paleo times. Urban-rural water planning should take heed.

Increasing desalination dependence

By 2000, urban water demand had reached the maximum that could be “reliably” supplied by “conventional” rainwater and groundwater. Significantly, no city deployed desalination.

Now, we have six desalination plants in five states. Perth is particularly reliant on desalinated water and groundwater.

Studies from 2010-2016 found desalination plants might be “better” than extra dams as a “long-term" option. They didn’t factor in population growth.

Mainland capitals are “planning” to massively boost their water supplies over the coming decades. Brash Melbourne reckons it might hit 80% “manufactured” (desal, recycled, storm) water by 2070.

In 2020, dozens of NSW and Queensland towns had insecure water supplies. Out of necessity, desalination is coming into play in regional WA and SA.

Desalination cross-dresses – as an environmentally “sustainable” and climate “resilient” adaptation – for further population growth.

That’s playing down its punishing construction and running costs. Much dearer than “conventional” water extraction — with consumers footing the bill.

What if costly desalination somehow enabled an extra 13 million (largely imported) punters to camp out on our wilting landscapes?

Maladaptive, contends SPA, not adaptive.

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Stop ignoring population

Like a seasoned rugby pro, water-industry thinking sidesteps the population issue.

Water Services Association of Australia (WSAA), in 2009, had us “well positioned” for population growth of any magnitude. A notable 2011 report said water wasn’t “a severe constraint” on population growth. Another report from 2018 said water-security risks could be “effectively managed”.

WSAA (2020) and Productivity Commission (2020, 2024) are putting “all options on the table”. On the supply side, that is, not the population demand side.

Apparently, as “technical” specialists, water (and urban) planners feel obligated to appease “whatever” demand-growth is forecast.

New water paradigm

The report declares:

'At the core of the techno-optimist mindset is a conviction that technology can treat symptoms rather than causes while continuing business as usual.'

Exhausting rain and groundwater, we’ve conjured a “diverse” water portfolio — including desalination. Like housing, adequate water becomes less a right and more a commodity.

SPA urges a new ethos - water as a “commons, not a commodity”. The so-called market won’t generate the right answers. Not with Big Australia up against a “heating, drying” climate.

“We have a choice about whether this growth continues”. The hell we do, retort Treasury overlords.

In conclusion, the report tags rapid population growth as a “Faustian bargain”. Sacrificing voter well-being for the “short-term interests of an elite few”.

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Compromised water-planning

The report could have said more about slack rural water planning and regulation. Aggregate usage of surface, ground, and floodwater resources is poorly measured and monitored.

Even along the MDB river plains, a significant proportion isn’t metered, with casual theft and “mysterious” disappearances of huge volumes of water. Nonchalantly regulated floodplain “harvesting” is a persistent woe.

Rigged onto this creaking irrigation contraption is our 21st-century MDB water market. Delivering rather what you’d expect – prosperous marketers if not necessarily farmers and communities.

However, SPA does question, why state-local governments accept Treasury’s onerous population diktats. When they’re the ones who must deliver the infrastructure — and water.

I’d go further. Nearly all the key “stakeholders” are on the Treasury team.

Usually, I categorise them like this: Federal politics; federal agencies; states and cities; economists, planners, and demographers; the media; universities and unions; think tanks and interest groups.

Among these, it’s not greatly controversial, that this government’s heading for nearly 1.5 million in net migration over its three-year term. In a Big Thirsty, this ought to be highly controversial.

We’re thrashing the 2006-19 Big Australia years. Pulverising by a factor of six, the historical average from federation to date. Doesn’t seem to perplex water planners.

Like our climate-besotted urban planners, they’ve hobbled their own professionalism. Though very ingenious, they’re also embedded “influencers”, not always in a good way.

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Check the Australian Water Association (AWA) website. There’s no flashing light that equitable water security is a forbidding mountain to climb — on top of a steeply rising population.

Rather, they’re busy 'connecting people…to inspire positive change…for a sustainable water future'. First up, is the 'diversity and inclusion' statement.

At WSAA, the new buzz is Nature Positive Water. “Net zero” and “circular economy” for vibrant water utilities. Never mind, the population ballooning in the water catchments.

Then check the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists' website. Their 30-year Blueprint professes to fix water and landscape. Set sail for “net zero” whilst waving through, high population growth.

AWA, WSAA, Wentworth – climate techno-optimists in full appeasement mode.

Good luck with that stance, guys. When water bills get hiked 50%, it’s your Sydney Water taking the rap — not the Treasury.

Ominous water-futures

For decades, a handful of sterling agencies and individuals, have tried to knock sense into Aussie endless-growth environmental and population policy. Rude or respectful, none has stopped the rot.

For elite – not voter welfare – arid Australia still insists on daft levels of population growth. Perpetuating damaging levels of housing and educational inequity, and institutionalising costly, divisive, water insecurity.

Only a political unicorn, an extraordinary leader, “natural” calamities or stakeholders themselves uprising can begin to change that.

Should that unicorn ever materialise, our trendoid water-planning culture might have to recut its cloth for a parched continent’s escalating water liabilities.

Stephen Saunders is a former public servant, consultant and 'Canberra Times' reviewer. He is on the Sustainable Population Australia Executive Committee.