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Understanding Water

Our stunning home Australia is and has always been a country of unpredictable rainfall. We experience high evaporation in many parts of our country, including here in the beautiful Redlands, because of our warm climate and sometimes not so beautiful humidity.

This is what makes the current debate and changes to our water management so topical. But it's nothing new, it is just taking us over 200 years of living here to understand.

We did actually get a lot of it right at one stage. Many of our homes once had rainwater tanks, and waterless toilets (uggh, we can remember with a wrinkling of our nose and a slight fear of that dark hole located in the back yard).

We also had a lot less concrete. Hard surfaces prevent natural drainage of water, therefore we lose more water to evaporation and to run-off. The more we convert green space to concrete the greater our affect is on the water cycle and the more we have to unnaturally find ways to locally retain our water.

Remember what we discussed in the previous two articles about how we can work with our natural environment, and that includes our local climatic conditions, to help us to live more comfortably, healthily and efficiently. We can learn to adapt ourselves to fit in rather than hoping the weather will conform our way.

If we think about our native animals and plants and how they have evolved to cope with our extended periods of drought and floods it might make it a little easier. As they say, when in Rome ….

In the next few editions, we will look at simple water conserving options we can employ to make our homes more affordable, comfortable, happy and healthy.

We'll look at ways we can reduce our demand for water from our bathrooms, kitchens, laundries and external areas. We'll consider how we can capture, use or reuse water. We'll examine the topic of 'Water Sensitive Urban Design' – ie the current set of buzzwords for minimising the amount of water that flows into our stormwater systems; we'll look at new and future technologies and aspects of those 'out of sight, out of mind' areas of stormwater, grey water and water treatment.

Remember, we don't have to do everything all at once. We want to live harmoniously and that means not panicking but simply learning, understanding and enjoying.