Central Highlands Water Security Strategy 2022-2042

Central Highlands Regional Council has created a Water Security Strategy 2022-2042 and Water Security Action Plan 2022-2025.

The objective of the plan is to support council to provide better security for existing schemes and allow for climate change. The strategy was developed following consultation with the Central Highlands community in 2022.

The townships within Central Highlands have experienced significant changes to water demand in recent years, with varying demographic movement, and future expansions in transport and mining posing potential impacts to the water security in the region. The Central Highlands Water Supply Security Strategy provides a strategy on how best to manage our water sources and secure additional water for the region.

Please note, the strategy relates to water sources only and does not consider the treatment plants or pipelines in the distribution networks.

What does the strategy involve?

The strategy identified five pillars of water security. A number of actions have been developed under each pillar to measure council's progress in in achieving the goals outlined in these pillars. The pillars include:

• Demand management
• Secure allocation
• Improved monitoring
• System augmentation
• Adverse supply planning

How to get involved

Share your thoughts on the strategy and action plan using the below methods:

• Online - use the link below to complete the survey
• Face-to-face at a drop-in sessions hosted by the Water Utilities team (find your closest session here).

The survey will close at midnight on Friday 28 April 2023. Paper copies of the survey will be available at council offices, transaction centres and libraries.

Your feedback and comments will be reviewed and considered by the Water Utilities team prior to the adoption of the strategy by council.

Please note that revised versions of the Water Security Strategy and Water Security Action Plan were uploaded to this page on 4 April 2023 at 2.00pm. Apologies for the inconvenience to anyone who may have reviewed the documents prior to this date. The two documents on the page now are current.