South East Queensland
19.4 Delivery to urban water system users
Supporting information
a. Supporting information
The volume for the line item during the 2012–13 year was 236,941 ML.
This line item consists of all potable, non-potable and recycled water supplied by water authorities to their end users within the South East Queensland (SEQ) region via the urban water supply system and the recycled water system.
Purpose | Type of water- Volume (ML) |
||
Potable |
Non-potable |
Recycled |
|
residential use | 160,257 |
– |
224 |
commercial, industrial and municipal use | 58,864 |
243 |
10,417 |
agricultural / individual irrigation use | 4 |
12 |
1,529 |
other use - urban use | 12 |
– |
2,344 |
recycled water on-site outdoor / irrigation use | – |
||
recycled water on-site in-door use | – |
||
recycled water on-site within process use (no-recirculation) | 3,035 |
||
Subtotal | 219,137 |
255 |
17,549 |
Total | 236,941 |
Table Note:
1. Where data were not available this has been indicated with (–).
The volume delivered by each water utility to end users are shown in the following Table.
Water Authority | Type of water |
Volume (ML) |
||
Potable |
Non-potable |
Recycled |
||
Queensland Urban Utility | 117,223 |
– |
6,458 |
123,681 |
Logan City Council | 17,008 |
– |
597 |
17,605 |
Redland City Council | 10,981 |
– |
– |
10,981 |
Unitywater | 26,876 |
– |
742 |
27,618 |
Gold Coast City Council | 46,767 |
12 |
7,914 |
54,693 |
Toowoomba Regional Council | 210 |
– |
101 |
311 |
South Burnett Regional Council | 72 |
|
|
72 |
Seqwater | – |
243 |
1,737 |
1,980 |
Total | 219,137 |
255 |
17,549 |
236,941 |
b. Urban water supply system overview
South East Queensland's (SEQ) urban water system comprises three sub-components:
- urban water supply system
- wastewater system
- recycled water system.
There are four main sources of water for SEQ's urban water supply system:
The water intake to the urban water supply system (251,897 ML) is from four sources: surface water (224,420 ML), groundwater (158 ML), desalinated water (2,805 ML), and imported water (24,514 ML).
During the 2012–13 year, the volume of water delivered to urban users (potable and non-potable water supplied amounting to 219,392 ML) was the major outflow from the urban water supply system. This supply for urban consumption represented about 87% of the total outflow. Approximately 11% of the outflow was leakage (19.3 Urban water system leakage to groundwater) and 2% was remaining losses.

Schematic diagram of water inflows and outflows during the 2012–13 year for South East Queensland's urban water supply system; line item numbers are provided in brackets
c. Recycled water system and advanced water treatment overview
About 7% of urban water consumption (236,941 ML) came from the recycled water system and from advanced water treatment.
During the 2012–13 year, approximately 55% of the recycled water produced (23,241 ML) was supplied to urban users. Approximately 13% of the recycled water was used on-site at wastewater treatment plants throughout the region; about 20% was used in-process (recirculated), and the rest was delivered for advanced water treatment. There was some unaccounted flow in the recycled water system inflows that produced an error of (1%) of total recycled water supply system inflows.The following figure shows all the inflows and outflows associated with the recycled water system and advanced water treatment.
For more detail on a particular flow associated with the recycled water system and advanced water treatment, refer to the line item notes. Note that volumes annotated with an asterisk (*) indicate flows between sub-components and are not reported in the account. As such, these flows do not have an associated line item number.

Schematic diagram of water inflows and outflows during the 2012–13 year for South East Queensland's recycled water system; line item numbers are provided in brackets
* due to data discrepancies, it was assumed that inflow into recycled system equalled to the recycled water usage.
Quantification approach
Data source
Seqwater: WaterHub database;
Queensland Urban Utilities (QUU), Logan City Council, Redland City Council, Toowoomba Regional Council: datasheets via Queensland Water Directorate (Qldwater);
Council of the City of Gold Coast: SWIM code data;
South Burnett Regional Council: datasheet;
Unitywater: Bureau of Meteorology code data.
Provided by
Seqwater; QUU; Logan City Council; Unity Water; Redland City Council; Council of the City of Gold Coast; South Burnett Regional Council; Toowoomba Regional Council.
Method
The value presented is sum of the metered and estimated volumes of potable, non-potable and recycled water supplied for: (1) residential; (2) commercial; industrial and municipal; (3) agricultural / individual irrigation; and (4) other urban uses. It also includes volumes of recycled water used on-site at wastewater treatment plants, except for the volumes used for on-site with-in process recirculation.
Assumptions, limitations, caveats and approximations
Volumes delivered to minor areas out-side the National Water Account SEQ region served by Queensland Urban Utilities has not been separated this year. With further information on the water supplies to these minor areas, volume of delivery for urban consumption within the SEQ region can be further refined.
Uncertainty information
Ungraded.