Last February there was widespread heavy rain over SW Western Australia causing much flooding across many districts – Engineers Australia. Yet I can not see evidence that water was measured flowing into Perth dams. The rain for Perth catchments was mostly on the 10th Feb. I have kept screen shots of the “Rainfall at Perth Dams” page which has a running total of inflows but the total never varies in the days after the rain event.
This chart of total dam levels shows levels actually fell through the summer & autumn and started recovery in June.
www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply/rainfall-and-dams/dam-levels
If you check Canning Dam at this Individual dam levels page.
www.watercorporation.com.au/water-supply/rainfall-and-dams/dam-levels/dam-levels-individual
You see the Canning chart is very different to the other dams. So maybe Canning Dam is where desalinated and underground water is stored?
The stream flows and dam levels simply don’t add up. When I looked at this a couple of months ago, dam levels were rising faster than the stream inflows, which would be impossible even if there was no water drawn from the dams and no evaporation.
As Beachgirl notes, they say they do store acquifer and desal water in dams. A dubious practice IMO which will increase dam water surface area and hence evaporation. From memory, annual evap in Perth is 1.8 meters. That’s a lot of water lost.
I love the “Rate our Website” flag at bottom left of WaterCorps
“Rainfall at Perth Dams” page. Oh the temptation.
Have you seen that dams suddenly got 24.72GL inflows overnight 23 – 24th Aug? WA Govt should sack WaterCorp.
Avon River was in full flood in February. Nigh on impossible that there is no inflow into Perth Dams when a nearby river in full flood. Are water repelling qualities of the catchment areas that different?