Indoor Water Supply Is Protected Catchment Areas - 2060 Words

Water Catchments Unique to Melbourne’s Water supply is it protected catchment areas, and is the key reason for very little treatment required (Melbourne Water 2014). Majority of the water feeding into the dams comes from the Yarra catchment regions, starting in the Great Dividing Ranges; figure 1.1 shows the regions for the catchments. The vast majority of the area is in protected National Parks. Yarra Catchment Regions The Yarra catchment is north and east of Melbourne and covers approximately 4,046 square kilometers. It is split into three regions Upper, Middle, Lower. It is home to more than one-third of Victoria’s population and native plant and animal species, (Melbourne Water 2014) there is a large variety of land use†¦show more content†¦Protected Catchment The protection of the catchment allow for a natural filtration system to occur before water enters reservoirs. This is important as â€Å"deeps soils acts like a sponges to hold rain water, the filter and slowly release into springs, stream, creek and river† (Melbourne Water 2014) that feed into to our dams. This is the factor that decreases that amount of treatment required for a clean drinkable water supply. Melbourne has 90,800 hectares National Park (protected) - majority of area is inaccessible for public, limited to low impact activities such as bush walking Water Catchments - Open Catchments While most of Melbourne’s catchments allow limited public access, a smaller proportion of our water comes from open catchments. These areas contain farmland, rural properties and state forests that are open to activities such as camping and four-wheel driving and small amounts of timber harvesting. The water from open catchments is put through a filtration treatment process, so it meets the same drinking water quality requirements as water from protected catchments. An open catchment is considered to be from area with no/ minimal protection. This mean that the water from these areas can be highly polluted and require extensive treatment. Farming land, recreational areas, run off from roads are all considered to be open catchment areas. Open water catchments in Melbourne’s water supply is compromised of: †¢ 56,300