About the area
- Melbourne Water operates a ‘common’ or wholesale water supply system for the greater Melbourne metropolitan area as well as for connected regional water authorities.
- Water is harvested from the Bunyip, Yarra, Thomson and Goulburn basins. The supply system draws from several on-stream storages and includes 4 significant off-stream storages: the Silvan, Cardinia, Sugarloaf and Greenvale reservoirs.
- Melbourne Water supplies the 3 Melbourne retail water corporations: South East Water, Yarra Valley Water and Greater Western Water. It also supplies the bulk entitlement holders in the Greater Yarra system – Thomson River Pool: Greater Western Water, South East Water, Yarra Valley Water, Barwon Water, South Gippsland Water, and Westernport Water.
- Most of Melbourne Water’s inflows come from protected catchments in the Yarra, Bunyip and Thomson basins, and minimal treatment (chlorination) is required. However, about 20% comes from unprotected catchments, and this water is fully treated by treatment plants at the Sugarloaf, Tarago and Yan Yean reservoirs.
- More information on the water corporation can be found at Melbourne .
2021-22 overview
Passed to other systems
449,082 ML was passed to other systems, similar to the previous year (441,519 ML in 2020-21).
Wastewater recycled at treatment plants
11% of wastewater was recycled (38,837 ML of 350,083 ML).
Water deliveries
Table 1: Common system water balance, Melbourne Water
Recycled water
Water recycled at wastewater treatment plants can be used to supplement water available in river basins. Table 2 below lists the wastewater treatment plants managed by Melbourne Water. Water discharged to the environment from treatment plants is included as an inflow to the water balance for each of the river basins.
The Essential Services Commission made some changes to recycled water data categories in 2021-22, so we have not included a comparison to 2020-21 in the table below. Click here to download the data for . More information can be found in How we account for water .
