'Water effficiency' is commonly used in the water sector and government quarters.

But it's narrowly defined, and focuses mainly on water savings such as covering irrigation channels and cutting down on shower times and so on.

Real water efficiency is much more than this. As we say in Our Water Mark (2007:90):

Real water efficiency is reached only when we significantly reduce the volumes of potable water used in our everyday activities,and when we use all available water, again and again, before we finally discharge it as waste water.

Happily, our definition of real water efficiencyis used in the Report of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Melbourne's Future Water Supply, June 2009 ( page 50 of Chapter 3: Water use Conservation and Efficiency). Find the report here.

The three crucial building blocks to achieving water efficiency are:

Measure and monitor water use		Great examples
Reduce the amounts of water		Huge results
Reuse water as many times as possible		It can be done

Imagine…… You walk around a city like Melbourne or Geelong. Everywhere you look there are signs of real water efficiency.......

Click below for the full imaginative picture and ask yourself - Is this beyond our reach?

Watermarks submission to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry Into Melbourne's Future Water Supply

Watermark Australia Transcript of the Committee Hearing.