ABSTRACT
Climate change due to global warming will reduce river flows across much of Australia and reduce the yield of existing urban and rural water systems. These reductions are additional to yield reductions that have occurred from the allocation of more water for environmental flows under national water reforms, and the severity of the 2001–2007 drought in southern Australia. Australian water authorities are adapting to these changes by implementing extensive water-savings programmes and by developing new water sources including water reuse, stormwater and desalination as well as traditional river and groundwater sources. This chapter describes an Australian case study and discusses how stochastic analysis of system scenarios can help identify drought and climate change risks, and the economic benefits of water conservation and water reuse.
