Australian Water Facts - Did You Know?

Australia uses 25,000 gigalitres of water per annum - which is equivalent to 50 Sydney Harbours.

Agriculture uses 15,000 gigalitres of water per annum - which is equivalent to 30 Sydney Harbours.

Urban Water uses 2,000 gigalitres of water per annum - which is equivalent to 4 Sydney Harbours.

Massive amounts of water lost through open channels and on farm loss: of the 15,000 gigalitres as much as 10,000 gigalitres of water per annum is lost which is equivalent to 20 Sydney Harbours.

When channel enclosure^[1] is complete, savings would be 3,000 gigalitres of water per annum, which is equivalent to 6 Sydney Harbours.

^[1] Details on the Environment page

Sydney Harbour as a unit of measurement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Port Jackson, containing Sydney Harbour, is the natural harbour of Sydney, Australia. It is known for its beauty, and in particular, as the location of the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Geologically, Port Jackson is a drowned river valley, or ria. It is 19 km long with an area of 55 km². The estuary's volume at high tide is 562,000 megalitres. The perimeter of the estuary is 317 kilometres.

In Australia the size of many bodies of water are referenced back to the size of Sydney Harbour, that is a body of water x is y times the size of the Sydney Harbour. The unit of measure would be sydharbs^[2].

For example: Lake Argyle, the Ord river dam and Australia's second largest artificial lake, is variously described as "18 times that of Sydney Harbour" or 18 sydharbs, "8-13 times the size the volume of Sydney Harbour", and "nine times the size of Sydney Harbour".

Warragamba Dam in New South Wales and Sydney's major water supply is described as being "4 times the size of Sydney Harbour". Lake Eucumbene, one of the major dams in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, "holds nine times the volume of Sydney Harbour".

The comparison is not confined to dams. Jervis Bay in New South Wales is "at least 6 times bigger in volume (and 4 times bigger in area) than Sydney Harbour", and Boston Bay in South Australia, on which Port Lincoln is located, is three and a half times larger than Sydney Harbour.