Storm water is a natural source of water which gets contaminated due to the excessive pollution levels. With an ever menacing threat to drinking water resources, the Australian government is planning to recycle storm water for drinking purposes. These tests were conducted primarily in the city of Salisbury, in northern Adelaide. Here people have been working for a decade on means to recycle urban storm water and to prevent the urban storm water to flow into the environmentally sensitive Gulf St Vincent.
It is known that the Barker inlet of Gulf Saint Vincent hosts one of the best coral reefs around the world, which has been threatened by polluted urban storm water flowing into it. The main strategy employed was to create wetlands for the treatment of such water. The water is now used for some purposes other than drinking. This has been a very successful step and the Australian government seeks to implement the plan on a larger scale and to make the water potable.
One of the main challenges is to cater to the variability of the water demand. It is to be noted that during the wet season, people don’t require much water for non potable purposes as the water from natural resources compensates for the requirement. The plan is to store the water and later use it when there is a demand.
