New study to help inform future wastewater reuse options for agriculture

Around Australia, many towns and cities reuse their wastewater for agriculture. However, a lot of wastewater is still being sent into rivers or the ocean, especially from large coastal cities. While recycled water isn’t suitable for everything, we wanted to investigate where there are opportunities to use recycled water where we can.

Reusing wastewater and maximising available water resources helps us to better adapt to a changing climate. Recycled wastewater can support some urban irrigation such as ornamental fountains, landscape irrigation and maintaining golf courses. 

Reuse of wastewater for non-food crop agriculture provides a solution for sustaining and expanding agriculture productions. Using water resources more efficiently can result in less demand on freshwater resources such as groundwater and rivers and lessens the amount of contaminants that are released into oceans and rivers.

The National Water Grid Authority (NWGA) engaged GHD to complete a study on the beneficial reuse of wastewater for agriculture. The National Review of Wastewater Reuse Opportunities for Agriculture (PDF 77 MB) | (DOCX 11 MB) was completed in 2022. The project used publicly available national data sets and geospacial analysis and the report identifies opportunities into increased usage opportunities in each state and territory.

By commissioning this study and report from GHD, the NWGA aims to better inform decision makers in all levels of government by providing research and study recommendations as an evidence-base for new and ongoing water infrastructure decisions. This adds to a growing NWGA Science Program library that anyone can access.