Dr. Suzanne Linnane:

In terms of education and engagement, when we talk about conservation and incentivising people to conserve we cannot look at it in isolation. We have to look at protection of waterways as well, because it is a holistic approach. There is no point in conserving our water if we are not protecting it in the first place. In terms of education that is where we should start. We are going from source right to tap at any given time. I have been involved in a large number of projects that have looked at community engagement from the outset and it is really effective. When there is real scientific data behind that and communities are brought along with that, the behavioural change can really make a difference.

If we had real time mobile apps where people can actually see their water usage at any given time and know what they should be using, that might be a simple technology accessible to everybody. There are a lot of ways we can look at it, but it has to be source to tap and very much holistic, and always engaging the community as we go.