The urban water challenge in Australian cities

Introduction The foundation and growth of Australian cities have been shaped by the availability of reliable supplies of potable water. The rapid growth of Sydney, the first site of settlement following European settlement in 1788, was reflected in the poor quality of housing in areas surrounding the port and the settlement soon exhibited features similar to those in the burgeoning industrial cities of England. The concentration of people and their wastes created ideal conditions for fostering and transmitting diseases, a combination that proved to have devastating effects. Later settlements at Newcastle, Brisbane, and Melbourne exhibited similar conditions. Urban populations grew and with them the demand for reliable supplies of potable water. The nature of the climate in the Australia, with high variability and long droughts, meant supplies were uncertain and led to quests for solutions that could cope. As settlements quickly expanded, they grew into catchments and close to water sources, eventually polluting the supply and forcing a search for newer supplies of potable water beyond the town limits. In the mid nineteenth century, local reformers, persuaded by arguments expressed by Chadwick in England (Flinn, 1965; Dingle, 2008), saw that the solution to the health problems and to the lack of security of supply was to develop a water services system that provided a reliable supply of potable water and a sewage management system that removed body wastes. It was a beguiling and ‘perfect’ solution, and they campaigned for it.