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Speaker 2: Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS.
Speaker 2: Oh now it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Sunday,
Speaker 1: the third of August. I'm Billy fitz Simon's I'm.
Speaker 3: Sam because Loski.
Speaker 1: Happy Sunday, Happy Sunday. We are here to talk about water. Now.
Speaker 2: Have you ever thought about where your water comes from?
Speaker 1: Well, maybe you did when you were in your year
Speaker 1: ten geography class.
Speaker 2: But in case you were sick that day or you
Speaker 2: need a refresh, get it.
Speaker 1: We are here to have an in depth look at
Speaker 1: the cycle of water and trust us, it's more interesting
Speaker 1: than it sounds. We asked you what you wanted to
Speaker 1: know about where your water comes from, and today we
Speaker 1: are answering those questions. And just a quick note, as
Speaker 1: you heard at the top of this episode is sponsored
Speaker 1: by Sitneing Water, but they have had no influence over
Speaker 1: the content of this episode.
Speaker 2: Sam.
Speaker 1: Before we get started, I actually want to start by
Speaker 1: asking you a question, where do you think water comes from?
Speaker 3: I have this idea in my head that the ocean
Speaker 3: gives us water that's treated, comes out of the tap,
Speaker 3: and we drink it. That's essentially my understanding of the
Speaker 3: source of our water. I actually sometimes think that when
Speaker 3: I'm in the ocean, I can't believe I'm going to
Speaker 3: be drinking this.
Speaker 2: You're just having a big old golf of seawater.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm young.
Speaker 2: Well you're pretty close. That is how it happens for
Speaker 2: some of the water.
Speaker 3: But then I think about rain. Yeah, get confused.
Speaker 2: About rainew, I will explain it. It's going today.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the first thing that we need to
Speaker 3: establish really is whether there's enough order forever and if
Speaker 3: water is a finite resource or if it's this constant
Speaker 3: kind of topped up pile of pile of liquid.
Speaker 1: So it's not the latter, it's a former. It is
Speaker 1: a finite resource.
Speaker 2: So all the water on Earth is all the water.
Speaker 3: We have, all that rain.
Speaker 1: It's a cycle, though, so I'm sure you know from
Speaker 1: uten geography that water comes to the earth and then
Speaker 1: it goes back up to the sky.
Speaker 2: That's a very simple.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's a bit of a that's a bit of
Speaker 3: a mind blowing idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so how much water we have today is the
Speaker 1: same amount of water we had ten years ago or
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago, or when the dinosaurs were on Earth.
Speaker 1: It's all the same water.
Speaker 3: I cannot get my head around that. So what about
Speaker 3: droughts then, well, that's.
Speaker 2: When there hasn't been enough rainfall. Let me explain a
Speaker 2: bit more.
Speaker 1: So. Obviously, the water moves around a lot, so it's
Speaker 1: going through this continuous process of moving between the earth
Speaker 1: and the atmosphere and then back again. And that's all
Speaker 1: part of the natural water cycle. So you're thinking about
Speaker 1: evaporation and precipitation, that whole process.
Speaker 3: Okay, In terms of.
Speaker 1: Drinking water though, which is what we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: A fun fact is that only one percent of the
Speaker 1: Earth's water is easily accessible to become drinking.
Speaker 3: Water, right, And what's the other vast majority of it?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: So ninety seven percent of our water is salt water,
Speaker 1: and of the three percent that's left over two percent
Speaker 1: is locked away in ice caps and glaciers.
Speaker 3: And so the question then is you've got this one
Speaker 3: percent of water that is water that we can actually
Speaker 3: drink or that is accessible to be drunk. How does
Speaker 3: that become drinking water?
Speaker 1: So there's a few different ways. The main source of
Speaker 1: water in Australia is from rain water, right, Okay, So
Speaker 1: whenever I'm with you and it's rating, you always say
Speaker 1: it's good for the farmers.
Speaker 3: Great for the farmers.
Speaker 2: Always say that.
Speaker 3: And the first thing I thought of when you said
Speaker 3: that sentence is the fact that you listen to rain
Speaker 3: when you're working when you need it. When Billy needs
Speaker 3: to lock in, she puts on the rain soundtrack.
Speaker 2: I look it up on YouTube and I just listen to.
Speaker 3: Rain all day. It's a very significant part of both
Speaker 3: of our lives and the farmers.
Speaker 1: And the farmers. But the next time it rains, you
Speaker 1: can say, well, I look forward to drinking this sometime soon.
Speaker 3: So explain to me that process of it falls from
Speaker 3: the sky. How does it land up in a tap?
Speaker 1: So obviously you need something to catch the rain water,
Speaker 1: and so that's what dams and water catchments are. Now
Speaker 1: this might seem like a silly or obvious question, but Sam,
Speaker 1: do you know what a dam is.
Speaker 3: I think about it as in the big bathtub of
Speaker 3: wherever you are. It's the bit near the drain at
Speaker 3: the bottom. What like, it's the bit at the bottom
Speaker 3: that collects all the water that comes from all the
Speaker 3: the bath Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, wait, you're really far off.
Speaker 3: Like all the water runs down all the hills and
Speaker 3: like through all the different channels and collects in a
Speaker 3: certain point.
Speaker 2: But it's not like in your house. No, that's what
Speaker 2: I thought you were saying.
Speaker 3: No, oh my gosh, No, I don't think a dam
Speaker 3: is a bathtub.
Speaker 1: You think it's like a big catchment in a reserve somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in the great house that is Australia. Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: the dam is in the bathtub of the country.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're more close than I initially thought you were.
Speaker 1: But it's actually the physical wall like structure that holds
Speaker 1: the water back once it's caught in that catchment, and
Speaker 1: it keeps it in this protected space. I'm like above, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like above, But my brain is too literal
Speaker 1: for your metaphors today clearly.
Speaker 3: And so then it collects in this bath slash dam,
Speaker 3: and then the question becomes, I guess how much it
Speaker 3: can collect? And that's where I guess rainfall becomes really important.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, so rainfall is very important for the dams. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, the dams are specifically in place to
Speaker 1: catch the rainfall and turn it in to safe, clean
Speaker 1: drinking water. Now, once it's in the dam, it then
Speaker 1: goes to water filtration plants, which is the process where
Speaker 1: it becomes safe to drink. Now, what's interesting when I
Speaker 1: was looking into all of this, I discovered that water
Speaker 1: utilities all around the world are actually wanting water processes
Speaker 1: that are less reliant on rainfall because of things like
Speaker 1: climate change and also housing growth.
Speaker 3: How does housing growth fit into.
Speaker 1: That, Well, it means that because you have more people
Speaker 1: into more tightly packed areas, there's even more water needing
Speaker 1: to go to those places.
Speaker 3: There's a greater stress on those really metropolitans supplies.
Speaker 1: And this particularly comes complicated during droughts. So in Sydney,
Speaker 1: for example, in the last drought, our water supply dropped
Speaker 1: by fifty percent over two years. So that was from
Speaker 1: mid twenty seventeen to feb twenty twenty, and as these
Speaker 1: extreme weather events become more common, we can't rely on
Speaker 1: rainfall alone to sustain a city like Sydney's water supply.
Speaker 3: And that's I guess where we need to be bringing
Speaker 3: in further processes that don't just rely on the rainfall
Speaker 3: that's coming into the dam. Are there other sources that
Speaker 3: we can get water from? Should there be another couple
Speaker 3: of years of drought for example.
Speaker 2: Yes, the ocean, I know it well.
Speaker 1: Yes, so seawater can be used, as you said at
Speaker 1: the start, as a drinking water source, but it needs
Speaker 1: to go through a different process to what it goes
Speaker 1: through with dam.
Speaker 2: So it needs to go through a specific process.
Speaker 3: Do you know what it's called desalination? Desalination plants that
Speaker 3: are always talked about in politics and in kind of
Speaker 3: government decisions.
Speaker 1: Yes, So desalination removes salt water and impurities from the
Speaker 1: sea water to produce drinking water. Now, Sam, you said
Speaker 1: at the start that this was the main way that
Speaker 1: you thought we get drinking water, and it can be
Speaker 1: so how dependent we are on the desalination process can
Speaker 1: change depending on how other sources are going so for example,
Speaker 1: if we're in a drought like I mentioned before, there
Speaker 1: might be a greater reliance on the desalination process. It
Speaker 1: is important to note that desalination is not only used
Speaker 1: though in times of drought. So in Sydney their desalination
Speaker 1: plant is currently operating and supplying water all year round.
Speaker 3: And so I guess the point there is it's meant
Speaker 3: to take a little bit of pressure off the dams
Speaker 3: in terms of how important they are to the water
Speaker 3: infrastructure exactly.
Speaker 1: And again comes back to being less reliant on rainfall
Speaker 1: and finding other sources to get safe drinking water.
Speaker 3: And is that the case around the country.
Speaker 2: So it varies state to state.
Speaker 1: Somewhere like Perth, for example, thirty five percent of their
Speaker 1: water comes from the desalination process. In Sydney it's up
Speaker 1: to fifteen percent. Melbourne has actually just committed to restart
Speaker 1: using desalination because dam levels are dropping.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Another rainfall independent resource is something called purified recycled water.
Speaker 1: So that's when you turn waste water into drinking water
Speaker 1: and it goes through a huge process to of course
Speaker 1: make sure that it's absolutely safe to drink. Now that
Speaker 1: is used around the world. So in Singapore, for example,
Speaker 1: about forty percent of their water demand can be met
Speaker 1: with recycled wastewater. Now it's not currently used in Sydney,
Speaker 1: but in Perth it contributes up to five percent of
Speaker 1: their drinking water.
Speaker 3: Fascinating. And so water is going through these various processes,
Speaker 3: whether from a dam or from the ocean or from
Speaker 3: a recycled facility. It goes through a filtation process or
Speaker 3: a desalination process, and then it comes through the taps, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so how does it get to the taps?
Speaker 1: You turn it on, You turn it on, but before
Speaker 1: you turn it on, it has to go through pipes. Yes,
Speaker 1: Now in Sydney there are twenty three thousand kilometers of
Speaker 1: drinking water pipes and that's just drinking water pipes, so
Speaker 1: there are also wastewater pipes. You combine drinking water pipes
Speaker 1: and waste water pipes, which, to be clear, they don't
Speaker 1: they're very separate. But if you did combine them, you
Speaker 1: could wrap the earth one and a quarter times. That's
Speaker 1: how long the pipes are in Sydney. And so that
Speaker 1: gives you an idea of the scale of the water operations,
Speaker 1: not just in Sydney, of course, but all over the country.
Speaker 3: And are there ways that we know that nothing along
Speaker 3: all of these steps and processes is actually going wrong.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are extensive processes throughout making sure that at
Speaker 1: every stage there are tests happening to make sure that
Speaker 1: it's clean and safe and everything's happening as it should.
Speaker 3: The thing I really enjoy about these types of stories
Speaker 3: is that it's almost a subconscious habit. We have to
Speaker 3: turn on the tap and to get water, and we
Speaker 3: know that that's not the case all over the world.
Speaker 3: But also there's a responsibility that we have as tax
Speaker 3: payers to understand even how all of these systems come
Speaker 3: and work together. And when we put this out to
Speaker 3: the audience, it was clear that people had this real
Speaker 3: curiosity with this process. One of the questions that I
Speaker 3: was particularly interested in was a question we got about
Speaker 3: the relationship between how the water system would change should
Speaker 3: the climate continue to change.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so this goes back to what we were
Speaker 1: saying before that there is this real need to move
Speaker 1: away from rainfall dependent water resources. Again, that's because with
Speaker 1: more severe droughts it will lead to lower down levels
Speaker 1: and reduced availability of water. And so the way you
Speaker 1: diversify is through options like desalination, or through options like
Speaker 1: the purified recycled water option. If you look at Sydney Water,
Speaker 1: for example, they actually have a goal for sixty five
Speaker 1: percent of their drinking water supply to be rainfall independent
Speaker 1: by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Right, so there's the real sense of trying to preempt
Speaker 3: this challenge should be a couple of decades in the future.
Speaker 2: But it kind of already is happening now right as well.
Speaker 3: There was another question that I think was one that
Speaker 3: we've all thought of. Why does water taste different everywhere
Speaker 3: you go?
Speaker 1: Okay, this is my favorite question because I think about
Speaker 1: this a lot.
Speaker 2: There is one.
Speaker 1: City in Australia where when I traveled there, I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe how different the water tasted. And you will notice
Speaker 1: when you move from state to state or city to city,
Speaker 1: the water does taste different depending on your location. And
Speaker 1: that's because of the different sources of where water can
Speaker 1: come from, but also because of different treatment processes. Now,
Speaker 1: there are Australian drinking water guidelines, but essentially how the
Speaker 1: different systems meet those guidelines can differ, so there's not
Speaker 1: only one way to achieve those safe standards, and something
Speaker 1: like the presence of minerals can really impact how water.
Speaker 3: Tastes, and chlorine would be one of the key ingredients
Speaker 3: that a lot of places add to water.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, chlorine is an interesting one. I don't think
Speaker 1: I think I ever fully understood that chlorine is actually
Speaker 1: added to drinking water at very small levels. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've ever been in a chlorinated pool and
Speaker 1: accidentally had a mouthful of the pool water doesn't exactly
Speaker 1: taste good.
Speaker 3: No, the yearnine swimming carnival drinking experience is not one
Speaker 3: to be chosen by voluntary choice.
Speaker 1: But obviously the amount of chlorine in a pool in
Speaker 1: your unine swimming carnival is very different to the amount
Speaker 1: in drinking water. And there is a limit on how
Speaker 1: much chlorine can be added to drinking water.
Speaker 3: And why is chlorine specifically an important part of the mix.
Speaker 1: So it's actually really important to be added to drinking
Speaker 1: water to kill things like water borne disease causing microorganisms
Speaker 1: like bacteria, So you can think of it like a protectant.
Speaker 1: And chlorine has a really long history of safe use
Speaker 1: in drinking water around the world and has helped to
Speaker 1: virtually eliminate water borne diseases in developed nations like Australia.
Speaker 3: It's always interesting reading about some of the projects around
Speaker 3: the world to uplift water infrastructure. I know the Gates Foundation,
Speaker 3: for example, is very very involved in providing clean water
Speaker 3: to different parts of Sub Saharan Africa and them talking
Speaker 3: through always how important it is to have various minerals
Speaker 3: and chemicals that go through our water to really ensure
Speaker 3: that some of those preventable diseases aren't there for everyone
Speaker 3: to drink.
Speaker 1: And that's when making sure that it's being tested at
Speaker 1: every stage is also.
Speaker 3: Important, exactly, and that's really interesting. It's always so amazing
Speaker 3: to kind of peel back the cover of how our
Speaker 3: society works. I definitely found that when exploring what happens
Speaker 3: to our Pooh, this is now a really interesting lie
Speaker 3: of what happened.
Speaker 1: We got through the whole podcast without you mentioning that
Speaker 1: it was valuable journalism, as is this.
Speaker 3: This is so interesting to think about when you turn
Speaker 3: on that tap and you get a bit of h
Speaker 3: duo that comes through. Thank you for taking us through that,
Speaker 3: thank you and thank you for joining us on the
Speaker 3: daily os. This Sunday water water everywhere, but not a
Speaker 3: drop to drink, but we do have another podcast to
Speaker 3: listen to tomorrow morning. We'll be back in your ears then.
Speaker 3: Until then, have a beautiful rest of your weekend.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what you just said, but bye.
Speaker 4: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 4: Bungelung Calcuttin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily os acknowledges
Speaker 4: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 4: Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 4: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 4: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 3: Now, if this episode got you thinking more about the
Speaker 3: water that comes out of your tap, you aren't alone,
Speaker 3: and Sydney Water is thinking about it too. As our
Speaker 3: population grows and our climate changes, the way we manage,
Speaker 3: protect and deliver water is becoming more important than ever.
Speaker 3: That's why Sydney Water is investing in smarter, more zillliant
Speaker 3: systems to make sure our drinking water is safe, sustainable
Speaker 3: and future ready. Every drop has a story and it's
Speaker 3: backed by thousands of kilometers of infrastructure, twenty four to
Speaker 3: seven testing and long term planning, so whether it's a
Speaker 3: hot shower, a cold drink, or water in your plants, no,
Speaker 3: there's a whole system working quietly in the background to
Speaker 3: keep it flowing. Learn more at sydneywater dot com dot
Speaker 3: au