Indicator: HS-61 Water quality in human settlements

Data

Satisfaction with Quality of Water for Drinking Purposes
Australia – 1994-2004
Proportion of Persons with Mains/Town Water
	Satisfied	Not satisfied	Depends	Don't drink mains water
1995	63.6	33.0	3.4	-
1998	64.6	27.6	4.9	2.8
2001	66.4	26.9	4.3	2.4
2004	69.8	24.0	3.9	2.4

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics. 2004, Environmental Issues: People's Views and Practices, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Canberra, viewed 28 Nov 2005, http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/
b06660592430724fca2568b5007b8619/989527f462991f5eca2568a90013933e!OpenDocument, p. 47

Environmental Issues: People's Views and Practices (Word - 131 KB)

Satisfaction with quality of water for drinking purposes
Capital cities vs rest of Austalia – 1994-2004
Number and proportion of persons with mains/town water
	Capital Cities			Rest of Australia		Australia-wide
	('000)	%		('000)	%	('000)	%
	March 2004
Satisfied	6667.1		72.2	3091.7	65.2	9758.7	69.8
Not satisfied	2095.1		22.7	1255.3	26.5	3350.4	24.0
Depends	333.3		3.6	208.9	4.4	542.1	3.9
Don't drink mains water	144.8		1.6	188.7	4.0	333.5	2.4
Total persons	9240.2		100.0	4744.6	100.0	13984.8	100.0
	March 2001
Satisfied	6135.3	69.3		2721.6	60.8	8856.9	66.4
Not satisfied	2238.6	25.3		1343.3	30.0	3582.0	26.9
Depends	354.8	4.0		224.9	5.0	579.6	4.3
Don't drink mains water	126.6	1.4		189.9	4.2	316.6	2.4
Total persons	8855.3	100.0		4479.7	100.0	13335.0	100.0
	March 1998
Satisfied	5718.5	68.0		2444.2	57.9	8162.7	64.6
Not satisfied	2133.2	25.4		1357.7	32.2	3490.9	27.6
Depends	373.8	4.4		245.5	5.8	619.3	4.9
Don't drink mains water	178.4	2.1		175.1	4.1	353.6	2.8
Total persons	8403.9	100.0		4222.5	100.0	12626.4	100.0
	June 1994
Satisfied	5161.1	65.7		2372.2	59.6	7533.3	63.6
Not satisfied	2457.6	31.3		1453.7	36.5	3911.4	33.0
Depends	241.7	3.1		156.0	3.9	397.8	3.4
Total persons	7860.5	100.0		3982.0	100.0	11842.4	100.0

Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics 2005, Canberra (unpublished data prepared by the ABS for SoE 2006)

What the data mean

There has been an increase in the proportion of people satisfied with the quality of drinking water since 1994. This increase was seen in both capital cities and outside capital cities; the little differences between the data from the two areas.

Data Limitations

The data was collected as a part of the March 2004 Monthly Population Survey, which interviewed persons from urban and rural areas across all States and Territories. However the Northern Territory data refers to mainly urban areas

Issues for which this is an indicator and why

Human Settlements — Liveability of human settlements - Water quality

The quality of tapwater in Australia is of a high standard when compared to other countries. Tapwater generally conformed to the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, except in some remote areas and rural settlements. Tapwater quality varies between locations and people’s perception of water quality was related to factors such as taste, colour, turbidity, odour, and microbial/algae contamination.

Other indicators for this issue:

Inland Waters — Habitat scale influences — Water Quality (for surface and groundwater) - Sediment and turbidity

Dirty tapwater is also an indicator of excessive turbidity in water sources.

Other indicators for this issue:

Key

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State of the Environment

2006