Performance of regional water purification plants during extreme weather events – three case studies from New South Wales, Australia

Abstract

Recently climate change has challenged Australia, inflicting climate extremes of increasing severity, with droughts, bushfires, and floods breaking historical records. Events such as the 2017–2020 drought, the 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires, and the 2021–2022 East Australian Floods have adversely affected water quality and supply in many regional New South Wales centres. Future events are predicted to increase in severity, and vulnerable Local Government Areas (LGAs) need to prepare to ensure water quality for their residents. Currently, there are limited information and case studies documenting the ongoing effects of climate change on water management for regional NSW centres. This research addresses the existing knowledge gap by providing insight into regional NSW LGAs affected by droughts, bushfires and floods, the challenges faced, the capacity to maintain water quality to Australian Drinking Water Guidelines (ADWG) and the ability to ensure sufficient storage supply. DAC (drought), BAC (bushfire) and FAC (flood) LGAs supported the case studies produced to target councils’ management during these periods, highlighting the success of the strategies and treatments implemented. The performance of the LGAs proved their existing systems could maintain water quality and supply throughout the differing climate extremes. Practices within the catchment management and treatment procedures require continual improvement to meet the increasingly volatile climate effects and heightened system demand of increased populations. This study provides recommendations to help address the impacts of future climate extreme events on the specified LGAs and other LGAs across regional NSW.