Desalinated water and recovered groundwater have prevented Perth’s dams from going offline during a dry and sunny winter.

Current conditions were predicted over five years ago, when Perth went into full swing on desalination plant construction and upgrades, now in dry times that investment in water security is paying off.

Without contributions from desalination plants the dams, which provide the metropolitan water supply, would have dropped below their acceptable limits of 110 billion litres and be taken offline. Protocol states any less water is deemed undrinkable due to the high concentration of other organic matter.

Yesterday Perth’s dams were at 154 billion litres, with an estimated 50 billion of that being contributed by desalination and groundwater.

A spokeswoman from Water Corp said “rainfall is no longer relied upon as our primary source of water. Our investment in desalination has secured our water supply in dry years... last year, we received only 18 billion litres of inflow to dams - consumption was 279.3 billion litres, so groundwater and desalination is vital.”

With drier winters becoming the mode around the country, other centres will likely take Perth’s lead and invest in water recovery in years to come.