Climate Change
Climate change is a global environmental issue with potential for significant environmental impacts.
What is climate change?
Climate change is result of the release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases produced by human activity.
These gases absorb heat from the sun and create a warmer atmosphere.
Burning fossil fuels, such as oil, coal and gas, clearing forests and using manufactured gases such as chlorofluorocarbons has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – the layer of air that surrounds the earth.
Impact on water supply - Climate Change Study
It is clear that climate change will have a long-term impact on water supplies.
In 2003 we commissioned the CSIRO to conduct a detailed study into the likely impact of climate change on our water, sewerage and drainage systems.
Our Climate Change Study (PDF, 1.3MB), 'Implications of Potential Climate Change for Melbourne's water resources', was released in 2005. The study identified trends including:
- Increased average and summer temperatures
- Reduced rainfall
- Reduced stream flows
- More extreme events with more hot days, more dry days and increased rainfall intensity during storm events.
This information is being incorporated into short- and long-term planning processes within Melbourne Water and the Victorian Government.
Rainfall trends in Australia for 1900-2003
Rainfall trends in Australia for 1950-2003.
Trends are shown in mm per decade. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Accumulated rainfall for the period October 1996 to May 2004 showing that the greater Melbourne Region has had its lowest rainfall on record compared to all other periods of similar length. Source: Australian Bureau of Meteorology.
Future actions
We are now working on a framework outlining how we are and will be responding to climate change impacts.
An update of the 2005 Melbourne Water Climate Change Study will begin in 2008/09.
Downloads
You will need Adobe Acrobat to access the above PDF documents. 