Source water protection underpins the safety and affordability of drinking water supplies where the prevention of water contamination provides greater surety than removal of contaminants. The Australian Drinking Water Guidelines emphasises the protection of source waters to the maximum degree possible as part of the multiple barrier approach to mitigate possible contamination.

Meanwhile, water utilities have been placed under increasing pressure to introduce or increase recreational access to drinking water catchments and water storages. There is also a lack of consensus around the impacts of different types of recreational access across Australia.

This project will summarise the current state of play of recreational access in Australia, report on the risks associated with different types of access, outline the types of cost benefit analyses that utilities can use when assessing recreational access, and promote a national understanding of risk to public health and water security.

Lakes and reservoirs are essential for water supply for humans and agriculture, and have an important role in flow regulation, biodiversity, and streamflow below dams. Australia has been subject in recent decades to severe drought which has heightened the importance of reservoirs for human populations and highlighted the need for careful management of water levels to maintain continuity of supply. Climate change is likely to exacerbate water shortages, with extended periods of drought, interspersed with more discrete and intense rainfall, leading to challenges for storing water in reservoirs and potentially affecting the quality of water.

In this project, Griffith University researchers examined the water quality risks from low and variable water levels in dams and reservoirs in Eastern Australia.

Climate change is depleting water resources, while population increases drive demand for additional recreational facilities, particularly in the vicinity of urban centres. It was thought that public access to water catchment land and reservoirs might cause large-scale outbreaks of disease, and that the water-consuming public would have to pay more for the additional water treatment required to keep drinking water free of the organisms that cause infectious disease. Some consider this unfair because it is an added expense that results from recreational access by a minority of the population. This research considered peer-reviewed literature, policy and regulation, hazard and risk assessment procedures, and placed these in the context of interviews, focus group interactions and surveys. It was concluded that although the science of the adverse effects of recreational access on water quality continues to stand up to examination, there is now justification for conducting an advanced risk-benefit analysis which was developed during the study. This uses a ‘multi-attribute utility’ approach that enables assessment of any given situation by incorporating cross-impact matrices. This risk-benefit methodology addresses the significant issues that arise when adjusting or implementing new recreational access priorities.