What Is Water Infrastructure and Why Is It Important?
Water has a large role to play in virtually every aspect of life. There are functional roles such as providing clean, reliable drinking water and safe wastewater practices. There is a social element, such as maintaining green spaces and waterways. There is also an environmental component to consider. Namely, sustaining natural life and habitats.
With such a diverse range of functions, it’s essential that water and sewer infrastructure is equal parts efficient, robust and effective. This way, everything from water supply, treatment and storage to water resource management, flood prevention and hydropower is properly accounted for.
Since our inception in 2005, the Fluid Services team have been delivering water infrastructure services across a large and diverse range of projects in the Sydney and wider NSW region. Helping to ensure that, as the driest inhabited continent in the world, Australia has sustainable, reliable and resilient water infrastructure.
Our suite of services encompass wastewater infrastructure, sewer encasements minor works and even water main drilling, to name a few. All of which helps us provide projects and more broadly, communities, with proper water infrastructure. The impacts of which cannot be overestimated.
What Is Water Infrastructure?
When it comes to understanding exactly what water infrastructure is, it’s essential to outline that water and sewer infrastructure essentially go hand in hand. This is because water infrastructure consists of systems that work to move and treat water.
Water infrastructure involves:
- Drinking water distribution systems in the form of pipes and water tanks
- Wastewater collection systems like pipes
- Stormwater drainage systems ranging from dams to channels
- Groundwater extraction systems like wells
- Sanitary sewer systems including sewage lines
- Wastewater treatment systems or plants
With this in mind, all water infrastructure is utilised in order to perform two key functions. Firstly, to supply clean and safe drinking water to the greater public. Secondly, to treat sewage before disposing waste back into the environment.
To understand the complexities of water infrastructure and to answer the question, how does water infrastructure work, consider one function – water distribution/supply. For this one piece of water infrastructure, there will need to be four different components.
The process starts with the primary treatment plant whereby raw water is delivered directly from the source and is treated using a range of different chemical and biological means to remove impurities. At this stage, minerals and chemicals to ensure the water’s safety are also added.
From there, the secondary treatment process will kick in, taking the treated water and further cleansing it to ensure proper purification. Tertiary treatment is next so that advanced filtration processes can work to produce purified drinking water.
The final piece of the puzzle is storage.
While complex, having efficient and effective water infrastructure systems ensures that there is a robust and trusted process for the essential function of providing communities with access to safe and clean water.
Why Is Water Infrastructure Important?
While water infrastructure seemingly goes unnoticed by most people on a daily basis, it is a key component that ensures everything from a high quality of life to economic, environmental and agricultural prosperity.
In terms of quality of life, access to clean water should be a fundamental human right. This is because safe drinking water and effective water infrastructure systems protect the public from things such as infectious bacteria, viruses, parasites and even toxic chemicals.
The importance of water infrastructure can also be highlighted through elements pertaining to economics. For example, effective water and sewerage systems make sure that bodies of water are clean and clear. All of which leads to industries such as fishing, recreation and tourism prospering, which in turn, helps to bring money into the local economy.
Water infrastructure is of great importance to the broader environment. Without proper infrastructure systems in place, waterways may become polluted, resulting in the broader ecosystem facing harm.
When it comes to farming practices, sound water infrastructure systems have a variety of different benefits. On one hand, these systems ensure agricultural productivity and therefore food security.
On the other hand, this infrastructure brings a level of sustainability to an industry that is a major consumer of water. This is because, when proper water infrastructure and associated systems are present, water is efficiently used and importantly, waste can be minimised and better managed.
Water Infrastructure and Fluid Services
In countries around the world and in Australia in particular, water is one of the most important resources. Not only does water play a role in living a healthy life, it also has economic, agricultural and environmental impacts.
This is where water infrastructure comes into play.
With the right water infrastructure, water use is made more efficient and waste is minimised. Without the right water infrastructure, drinking water may be contaminated, affecting everything from individual health to livestock and crops.
As Australia is one of the driest countries in the world, it has never been more important to protect water infrastructure and install sustainable and durable systems. At Fluid Services, we provide water, sewer and drainage infrastructure on projects of all sizes.
Contact our experienced team to get a quote today.
