ABSTRACT
Climate change and the impact upon already scarce water resources are important issues in the public debate in Australia. During 2006, Prime Minister John Howard refused to meet Al Gore when he visited Australia to promote his documentary An Inconvenient Truth. Severe droughts combined with changes in public mood softened the prime minister's rhetoric and later he declared that he broadly accepts the science behind climate change. Restrictions on urban water use have frequently been imposed in the past and Water Corporation Perth is starting to incorporate climate change within its planning processes by a combination of increasing the supply and simultaneously trying to decrease the demand. This case study will demonstrate what options are available for drinking water planners in terms of adaptive responses to climate change using the Perth case as an example.
