Storage Statistics

Summary

Wellington Dam as a reliable water resource has been largely ignored over the years. In this section the intention is to demonstrate the importance of the dam to the West Australian public.

The water using, taxpaying public of this State are constantly told that our water crisis is caused by global warming and climate change which affects rainfall and as a consequence less rainfall gets into our dams. Agritech Smartwater agrees that less water is getting into our dams but questions the reliability of blaming the above two factors and leaving out the main cause which is that the surface runoff is the larger problem.

To illustrate we have displayed the Dam Storage Levels for both the Metropolitan and South West Dams and Reservoirs as published by the Water Corporation on its website.

Readers will notice that 13 dams and reservoirs supply the Perth metropolitan area. Although these dams have a combined storage capacity of 688 GL, the actual water in storage over the past ten years or so, equates to an average of less than 30%.

The storage capacity for the 23 South West Dams and Reservoirs is 425 GL and the water in storage averages over 50% of that capacity. Records over the past 10 years indicate the SW dams in percentage terms of capacity are always double that of the Perth dams.

Using the same Dam storage data, look carefully at all the figures for Wellington Dam, particularly its current storage against its storage capacity. Then look at the total water held in storage of the 13 Metro Dams and compare this as a percentage to the storage level of Wellington Dam. To save people diving for their calculators we can tell you that at any time, Wellington Dam holds approx. 70% of the combined volume of water in the 13 Metro Dams. See the accompanying figures.

Click here to view a sample of recent Metropolitan and South West Dam Storage Levels.
Click here to view current Metropolitan Dams and Reserviors Storage Levels.
Click here to view current South West Dams and Reserviors Storage Levels.