Lessons the United States can learn from the drought in Australia

The brutal drought has ended over large parts of Australia — and consumers are obsessively reducing their demand for water — and yet water “prices are set to double in the next five to 10 years,” Water Services Association Australia executive officer Ross Young told a drought briefing in Canberra.

The focus on water conservation has never been higher:

Water is a dinner table topic. People are quite passionate about water and they are quite concerned about water in the context of climate change.

And the results are impressive:

Average daily summer water use in Melbourne during the 1990s was 1,631 litres, compared with 1,092 litres at the end of last month.

But doubled prices are still inevitable in the coming years, “as the industry funds the significant capital works programs — some $30 billion over the next five to 10 years just in new water sources for urban Australia.”

Since scientists tell us we’re turning the west into a desert, much greater water conservation, tens of billions of dollars on water infrastructure, and much higher water prices are also inevitable there.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.