Few aspects of our approach to the development and management of cities have lasted 150 years. We no longer have the same building regulations. We have consigned the miasmatic theory of disease transmission that existed in Chadwick’s time to the dustbin of history. We live and work in our cities in very different ways now than we did then, and we communicate with one another in ways that were unimaginable then. The way we consume energy and the forms of energy we consume today are very different from then. The governance of our cities is different now and we pay for a whole range of services in ways that were inconceivable then. Our concern for the environment demands a very different approach to the way we use natural resources now.

We accept that we live in a state of flux. Paradoxically, the path dependencies we have created in the water services we provide and the way we provide them is reflected not only in the technologies we use in consuming water services; it is also reflected in the cultures of the institutional and administrative arrangements we have devised for the management of water. This institutional culture has fed and been created by the ‘predict and provide’ approach which is taken. The preoccupation with pricing regimes as solutions to moderate demand does little to generate new thinking in approaches to water services. The present so-called crisis or ‘water problem’ may be an apposite time to review sanitation services and to develop a new approach that recognises our fundamental need for potable water to maintain our health standards and our need to manage human body wastes in a felicitous manner but one which minimises the use of water.

Even if it is acknowledged that present uses of water cannot be sustained and that the current approach to the water crisis by searching for ways of increasing supply is ultimately self-defeating, it would be impossible to arrange for a rapid transition from the way water services are currently provided. The 150 years of development of the water-supply and sewerage systems have shaped, and been shaped by, the development that has occurred in Australian cities. This creates a significant degree of path dependency in the way in which services are provided and must be taken into account in trying to find ways of continuing to provide a supply of potable water. A similar situation exists in relation to the provision of waste-management services.

While it is conceivable that alternative approaches to the provision of water-supply and waste-management services could lead to significant reductions in the consumption of water, any transition from the way these services are currently delivered must be pursued taking into account the rate of growth of the urban areas served and the rate of obsolescence of the existing reticulated services.

Currently, the additions to the built environment run at about 1–1.5 per cent per year, depending on the stage in the building cycle. By mandating all new developments to install rainwater tanks, greywater-recycling systems and dry-composting toilets would reduce the demand for potable water by up to 70 per cent per dwelling. By identifying areas where it would make sense to retrofit developments with such things, the rate of change of a new approach to water services could be doubled. Pursuing such a program for a decade would mean that after 10 years, 30 per cent of the urban development would be using 70 per cent less water per dwelling. Such savings would continue to be obtained as the older parts of the cities were progressively modernised. Similar savings could be achieved in all non-residential developments in the city. This would mean that the path-dependency effects of the present systems were recognised and taken into account as the city renewed itself. In the longer term, this would lead to a continuing and substantial reduction in demand for the publicly provided supply of potable water.

This suggests that changing the existing services may take some time and that several strategies may be pursued simultaneously.

The first would focus on an aggressive pursuit of efficiencies in the consumption and supply of water services in the existing urban development.

The second would be to require new additions to the urban stock to provide for the capture of rainwater runoff at the time of construction. Water so harvested could then be used to substitute for potable water supplied through the present reticulation system. Many current proposals include a requirement to plumb tanks to toilets and washing machines.

The third would focus on the development of a retrofit program to gradually change over the existing development, with the rate of change being dependent on the rate of obsolescence of the services.

This approach would minimise the problem of stranded assets, identified by Dovers in Chapter 5, which would be created if the rate of change to new systems was too rapid. The actual rate of change would be decided for different areas within the city following a detailed analysis of the water consumption in those areas and the efficacy of introducing new waste-management services and the costs of doing so. It would, of course, also explore the savings to be obtained from reducing water supplies and consumption and of reducing the management and treatment of waste flows.

Dovers also points out the need to explore changes in the institutional and regulatory arrangements currently employed in the management of water services generally. This seems to be the most difficult phase in developing a new approach to the solution of our water-services problem. Water authorities are simply loath to take a new approach. They take refuge behind economistic arguments that pricing structures can lead to reduced consumption but seem not to accept either the issues of rights of access to potable water or the equity aspects of the pricing regimes they favour. They also discount alternative approaches to supply, such as encouraging use of rainwater tanks or stormwater harvesting, on the grounds that they still have an obligation to provide water services in dry periods, arguing that the risk to services is too great. This leads them into arguments supporting the use of manufactured water in which the risks to health and to environmental stresses are heavily discounted. Their proposals also seek to avoid allowing the public any say in the decision-making.