Australian Bureau of Statistics
Celebrating the International Year of Statistics 2013

WATER SUPPLY, SEWERAGE AND DRAINAGE

 
 
INTRODUCTION
 
This section presents information on the Water supply, sewerage and drainage industry (hereafter shortened to the Water supply industry). The water supplied and used by this industry is divided into distributed and reuse water. Data are also presented on distribution losses, regulated discharges, bulk water supplied, number of water providers and the origins of distributed (i.e. surface water, groundwater) and reuse water (i.e. waste water, drainage water and storm water).
 
  
MAIN FINDINGS
 
The main findings in this section are:

• Nearly all (9,117 GL or 97%) of the distributed water supplied in 2009–10 was supplied by the Water supply industry. Of this, more than half (5,582 GL or 59%) was supplied by irrigation/rural water suppliers and more than a quarter (2,429 GL or 26%) by major urban water service providers.
• Surface water was by far the greatest source of water for the Water supply industry, with 8,727 GL or 96% of total distributed water being derived from this source in 2009–10; groundwater provided 313 GL and desalination 77 GL.
• The state with the largest volume of distributed water sourced from groundwater was Western Australia (173 GL or 55%), followed by New South Wales (52 GL or 17%).
• The total volume of reuse water supplied was 374 GL; around 60% of this was in New South Wales (127 GL) and Victoria (98 GL).

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