Concern Perth’s urban gardens will turn from green to brown with winter sprinkler switch off to begin soon

ABC NEWS (Australia)

With Perth's Winter Sprinkler Switch-Off fast approaching its June 1st deadline, communities across the city are concerned urban gardens will pay the price. Councils want more support in preventing the city from turning from green into brown.

Transcript

00:00 In what was once a green and leafy suburb, there's now dead and dying trees the city

00:07 of Nedlands overcome with the reality of Perth's dry and warm weather.

00:13 We have 5% of our bore water allocation left, so essentially we are turning from a green

00:20 city into a brown city and it is really concerning.

00:24 The city is just one of the areas across Perth coping with limited water, resorting now to

00:30 only watering sporting fields at 50% capacity and not watering parks at all, a result of

00:37 the prolonged dry period across the state eating up precious water supplies.

00:43 Only 23mm of rain was recorded in Perth between October through to the end of April, marking

00:49 the driest period on record, with the Bureau now predicting a warm winter as well.

00:57 Despite this, the Water Corporation is adamant about keeping its winter sprinkler ban in

01:02 place to preserve what's left.

01:05 We have heard the concerns from the community and definitely from our industry stakeholders

01:09 who we work very closely with, but this is one year and we've been through these before.

01:14 But the state government says this prolonged dry stretch hasn't been normal.

01:19 The out of season weather and bushfires in November last year and WA just having its

01:23 warmest summer on record are stark reminders that we are experiencing the acute effects

01:28 of climate change right now.

01:30 While parks across Perth might appear to be lush and green, communities are concerned

01:35 with sprinklers switching off and councils cutting back on watering.

01:40 Green spaces might not look like they once did.

01:42 So this is the new normal, all the modelling suggests that our climate is going to continue

01:47 to dry and what we really need to do is adapt and one of the key ways that we can do that

01:52 here in Perth is to reuse more of our water.

01:55 Water is gold and we've got to value this really precious finite resource.

02:02 Liquid gold for many across the city.

02:05 [ Silence ]

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