As migrants pile in, NSW water supply runs out

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The water crisis facing NSW has made headlines over at CNN:

…the city of Sydney — home to more than 5 million people — faces a warning that dams could run dry by 2022…

Dams in greater Sydney are currently at 46.6% capacity. According to the NSW water authority, they are on track to hit 40% — which means level 2 water restrictions would be imposed by next February or March…

“With the current rate of depletion we could be in a tricky situation in a couple of years,” [Melinda Pavey, the state’s water minister] said, adding that this was the worst drought in NSW on record…

The drought and the fires are the most urgent symptoms of Australia’s climate crisis… The country is getting hotter and drier, and the rains have stopped coming — this time last year, the dams were around 64.4% full.

According to the NSW water authority, more than 85% of greater Sydney’s water supply depends on rainfall — meaning that as the drought drags on and the dams run out, residents may face a serious water crisis with few other alternatives.

As usual, the article fails to mention that NSW’s water crisis is been greatly exacerbated by massive population growth via net overseas migration (NOM):

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As shown above, NOM has directly added 950,000 people to NSW’s population over the past 15 years, more if you add the children of migrants (counted separately as natural increase).

The ABS’ median projections also have Sydney’s population increasing by around 87,000 people annually over the next 48 years, which would grow Sydney’s population by around 4.5 million people to 9.6 million:

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All of this population growth will come from NOM – either directly as migrants step off the plane or indirectly as they have children.

This is clearly a recipe for disaster, since Sydney’s water demand will nearly double at the same time as droughts become more common and severe and evapotranspiration rates skyrocket:

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The only solution will be to build a battery of expensive and energy-hungry desalination plants across the NSW coastline, greatly raising costs for incumbent residents.

Or we can do the sensible thing and slash immigration now and prevent the problem from developing in the first place.

About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.