Making better recycled water investments

This national collaborative research sought to shape the knowledge base and future actions of key investors and decision-makers in recycled water.

ISF researchers worked with 12 partner organisations representing key stakeholder groups – utilities, developers, local authorities, technology providers and regulators – to develop eight wide-ranging case studies. These documented stakeholders’ experiences of water recycling at different scales, for different end uses, under different public-private arrangements, and in different jurisdictions.

Both our case study approach and the resulting project outputs aimed to:

enable public and private proponents to build better business cases for recycling schemes, by doing a better job of accounting for risks, costs and benefits over the life of the scheme; and influence revisions of key policies and guidelines that allow or constrain equitable allocation of the risks, costs, and benefits that flow from recycling.

Figure 1. Illustrated link between case studies themes and resource papers

Case studies

Darling Quarter: Successful sewage recycling within a high-profile commercial building

Roseville: Stormwater recycling for urban golf course and oval irrigation

Wide Bay Water: Reusing sewage protects a World Heritage site and develops new revenue streams

Rosehill: Sewage recycling for large industrial customers

Aurora: Pioneering sewage recycling in a greenfield residential development provides many lessons

Wagga Wagga: Exploring sewage recycling in a regional inland city

Yatala: Onsite industrial recycling improves water efficiency in beverage manufacturing

Willunga Basin Water Company: Sewage recycling provides certainty for expanding wine region

Scope and approach

Eight diverse water recycling schemes from across Australia were selected for case studies, covering a broad spectrum of situations across:

• scale: from precinct/cluster up – 0.17 to 20 ML/d
• jurisdiction: Qld, regional and metro NSW, Vic, SA
• source: sewage, trade waste or stormwater
• end use: residential, commercial, industrial and agricultural
• delivery models: public, private, and partnerships
• location: urban, rural, regional
• operational duration: months to decades.

The depth of the case studies is expanded by six papers exploring cross-cutting themes that emerged from the detailed case studies, complemented by insights from outside the water sector.

Themes

Navigating the institutional maze

Saving water and spending energy?

Demand forecasting: a risky business

Matching treatment to risk

Public-private matters: how who is involved influences outcomes

Looking to the future

For each study site and theme, inputs included semi-structured interviews with representatives of all key parties (regulators, owners/investors, operators, customers, etc) and a document review (of internal organisational documentation, policies and guidelines, conference and academic literature, for example).

The specific details of the case studies and themes were then integrated into two synthesis documents (the policy paper and investment guide) targeting two distinct groups: policy makers and investors/planners.

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