Discuss about the Eliminate Dengue Program in Queensland.
One of the essential natural resource that helps every living organism to sustain in the planet earth is water. Considering the available water resource on earth it can be counted as unlimited; however when it comes to drinkable water, then the situation starts to becoming worse. Out of total water resource on earth, only 3% is consumable and out of total consumable water only 1% is available in liquid form that we get either from ground resources or from the surface water (Cosgrove and Rijsberman 2014). Situation wouldn’t have been this as it is in 21st century if there were no population boom and water resource contamination. When it comes to countries like Australia, then the water scarcity is prominent since 2000, owing to lack of natural water reservoirs and ground water source (Mekonnen and Hoekstra 2016). Thus in present scenario, drinkable water is one of the major issues that is being continuously contested by various researchers. Main aim of the recent researches regarding water resources are focused to provide alternative drinkable water source that can effectively mitigate the present water scarcity issue. Among many alternatives sea water desalination and wastewater reuse are the most effective solution however, public acceptance of the same is major concern. This report is aimed to assess the public acceptance of the treated desalinated water and wastewater as potable water with special focus to Australian population. In addition to this, this report is focused to provide community engagement strategies in order to make the available alternative of natural resource being accepted by mass population in the selected region.
Sydney is one of the vibrant city in Australia, which is accounted for the home of more than 5 million peoples (Srivastava 2015). According to the statistics, during 2017, 671 million liters of water is consumed every day in Sydney and the demand is higher than the last ten years figure (Yan, McManus and Duncan 2018). Considering the same source demand of the water in Sydney it can easily be calculated that every year Sydney consumes more than 2449 billion liter of water and it is all set to rise in coming days. When it comes to supply of water, then Sydney is dependable upon its 11 major dams that can store around 2600 billion of liter of water; however only 2000 billion is available for usage per year (Taylor and Brodie 2016). Thus, since 2000, there is persistent lack of clear drinkable water in Sydney that forced the government to rethink about its water resource programs. Considering the alarming situation of the drinkable water government came with the Metropolitan Water plan during 2010, which mainly focuses on enhancing storage capacity of the dams, desalination of sea water, recycling of wastewater and enhance water efficiency (MacDonald et al. 2015). Introducing these stimuli to water supply mechanism of Sydney government tried to increase the water supply.
Among all the focus points of the 2010 Metropolitan Water Plan, wastewater recycling and desalination of the sea water came to be most efficient for the state owing to its cost effectiveness and efficiency rather than renovation of the dams. Though Sydney was initially dependable upon dams for drinkable water, however presently waste water recycling and desalination is performing efficiently to mitigate the supply demand gap. Considering the figure 1, it can be seen that not only in Sydney, rather most of the major cities in the Australia is using the water recycling and sea water desalination to produce pure water and mitigate the supply demand gap in the respective states (Johnson 2016). This rise in the supply of water is mainly christened through the 2010 Metropolitan Water Plan that enhanced the recycling capability and led the country have better water resource.
Highlights that over the year various states has used the recycled water as one of the major source of potable water. However, considering the case of Sydney it can be seen that the state has consumed 12% less recycle water during 2017 due to reduction in recycled water supply to commercial, municipal and industrial consumers (Bom.gov.au 2018). Considering this it is important to assess, whether the same situation is persistent throughout the household sectors of Sydney too or the scenario is different. This underlines the basic background of this study and moving forward the report will portray its assessment on community view regarding recycled water acceptance as potable water source.
Wastewater and desalinated water is being pushed as alternative source of potable water since long. However, it can be seen that there are differentiated view regarding the both alternative. From the figure 3, it can be seen that population of Australia possess different view regarding two alternative that gives birth to the studies that how well Australian communities has accepted the alternative source of potable water (Luo et al. 2017). Moving forward, this report will portray the finding of various researches regarding the acceptance of recycled water and desalinated water as substitute form of available potable water.
Desalinated water is one of the major alternative source of potable water. According to the recent AWA survey, it has been found that people of Australia prefer desalinated water as second best alternative to the ground water. This highlights the acceptance level of desalinated water in the Australian communities (Fragkou and McEvoy 2016). When it comes to Sydney, then the acceptance level of desalinated water is much higher compared to the recycled water.
It can be seen that 706 people out of 1200 sample population believe that desalinated water is sufficiently safe for consumption and a major chunk of sample survey agrees that it is one of the best ecofriendly source of potable water (Awa.asn.au 2018). In addition to the above findings it can also be seen that more than half of the population believes that it is a cost effective measure of producing potable water.
It can be seen that 81% of the sample population of Sydney believes that recycled water may contain chemicals whereas only 66% believes the same in case of desalinated water (Dolnicar and Schäfer, 2006). The above figure also portrays that most of the sample population believes it is safe to consume and chances of health issue after consuming the desalinated water is lower than the recycled water. It clearly highlights that most of population of the Sydney has accepted the desalinated water as alternative source of potable water.
Since 2010, Metropolitan Water Plan has effectively trying to push the recycled wastewater as one of the major alternative source of potable water. However, considering the finding of recent researches it can be stated that neither people from Sydney nor from the different states of Australia has accepted it wholeheartedly (Ghernaout 2018). Most of the people are concerned about the capacity of recycled wastewater as substitute potable water due to the hygienic issue. People prefer to use the recycled water for activities like gardening, irrigation, car washing and other rather than using it for consumption purpose.
Highlights the report of AWA, which state during 2014 among 1200 people only 458 respondent believe that recycled waste water is drinkable in the year. And next to this only 320 people out of 1200 sample population believes that water recycling is a cost effective way of potable water that highlights the real acceptance scenario of the wastewater as potable water source (Awa.asn.au 2014). However, contrary to the household usage, the above figure highlights that a large portion of sample population believes that recycled water can be used for commercial and industrial usage rather than using it as potable water.
Portray that compared to the recycled water most people find desalinated water clear, odorless and drinkable. However, desalinated water is expensive compared to the recycled water that has provided certain amount of boost to the industrial usage of recycled water.
Highlights that people are willing to pay from 2.65 for 10 gallon of recycled water to 48.38 for 40 gallon of water for the usage like cleaning, gardening and others (Cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au 2018). Thus, considering the outcome of the recent surveys conducted, it can be stated that due to high odor and hygienic issue recycled water is widely being rejected as substitute drinkable water source; rather it has established itself as one of the major alternative of ground water in the case of industrial and commercial usage.
Wastewater recycling and desalination of the sea water are the new technologies to the communities of Australia that makes it essential to come up with effective community engagement strategy. With proper information regarding the benefit of utilizing recycled water can be helpful to penetrate the communities, however it is hard to do due to. Thus, some of the community strategies are mentioned below in order to engage the communities across the Sydney effectively and let the recycled water be accepted as the alternative source of the dam water to mitigate the demand and supply gap of potable water.
Figure 9, highlights the community engagement strategy that the government of Sydney can take as the community engagement strategy for acceptance of the recycled water. The process is cyclical and it starts from the sharing information and education regarding the reusable potable water sourced from sea water and wastewater through choice modelling framework.
Next to this government can publish FAQ videos, which are aimed to provide essential information regarding the government’s project to the public and let them know what is going to take place in coming days. According to the Kolopack, Pearson and Lavery (2015), success of the community engagement program depends largely on the use of interactive methods like sharing plans, seeking views and feedback regarding the program from the sample public and implement the same in order to redesign and customize the program according to the demand of the mass population. Thus, when it comes to the potable water of Sydney, then the government can utilize communication tools like NDEEP that has effectively impressed large number of population in the country with their videos and animations about the targeted program.
From the survey of Kearnes and Motion (2014), it can be seen that people of Sydney wants to have sustainable solution of potable water, which is healthy and secure and can provide continuous flow of water to the households. At 2017, after 7 years of the Metropolitan Water Plan, government is in the fifth and final stage to implement the program in Sydney completely. Thus, government can use Decide-Announce-Defend (DAD) framework for the phased implementation of the Metropolitan Water Plan and let it get accepted by all the communities in the Sydney.
Conclusion:
From the above analysis it can be seen that population of Sydney has accepted the desalinated sea water as the alternative source of potable water wholeheartedly. Contrary to this wastewater has failed to influence the most of the population in the state. According to them, it may cause health issues and the persistent yuck factor in mind is hampering the acceptance of waste water in the Sydney communities. However, recent survey shows there is substantial amount of rise in preference of wastewater as alternative source of potable water among the population of the Sydney through community engagement programs like DAD. Lack of information sharing and knowledge partaking has lead the population of Sydney to understand wastewater consumption improperly. Thus to conclude it can be stated that focus of community engagement strategy need to incorporate wastewater acceptance with larger weightage.
Reference:
Awa.asn.au. (2014). State of the Water Sector Report 2014. [online] Available at: https://www.awa.asn.au/Documents/State_of_the_Water_Sector_Report_2014_FINAL.pdf [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].
Awa.asn.au. (2018). Desalination Fact Sheet. [online] Available at: https://www.awa.asn.au/AWA_MBRR/Publications/Fact_Sheets/Desalination_Fact_Sheet.aspx [Accessed Apr. 2018].
Bom.gov.au. (2018). National performance report 2016–17: urban water utilities. [online] Available at: https://www.bom.gov.au/water/npr/docs/2016-17/nationalPerformanceReport2016_17UrbanWaterUtilitiesHigherRes.pdf [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].
Cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au. (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/291979/FINAL-Community-Engagement-Strategy-2017_DE5_web.pdf [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].
Cosgrove, W.J. and Rijsberman, F.R., 2014. World water vision: making water everybody’s business. Routledge.
Dolnicar, S. and Schäfer, A. (2006). Public perception of desalinated versus recycled water in Australia. [ebook] University of Wollongong. Available at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1145&context=commpapers [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].
Fragkou, M.C. and McEvoy, J., 2016. Trust matters: Why augmenting water supplies via desalination may not overcome perceptual water scarcity. Desalination, 397, pp.1-8.
Ghernaout, D., 2018. Increasing Trends Towards Drinking Water Reclamation from Treated Wastewater. World, 3(1), pp.1-9.
Jacob associates, M. (2014). Community values for recycled water in Sydney. [online] Vuir.vu.edu.au. Available at: https://vuir.vu.edu.au/32282/1/Community%2Bvalues%2Bfor%2Brecycled%2Bwater%2Bin%2BSydney.pdf [Accessed 6 Apr. 2018].
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