Subterranean caves in the Blue Mountains have been
converted into observatories to quantify how water moves through buried rock structures into groundwater.
Groundwater forms the world’s largest active repository of fresh water—more than a hundred times larger than rivers and lakes combined.
To use that groundwater resource sustainably, we need to know that we are only using as much water as is being continually replaced, mostly via rainfall and underground leakage from rivers.
Hot and salty water is a common by-product of industries such as textiles, food and dairy production. But new technology that allows this water to be purified, collected and re-used on site has been developed by Victorian scientists.
Their compact module, smaller than the size of a human, can transform a wasteful industrial operation into an efficient process that recycles energy, water and materials.
“We’ve calculated that our module can reduce water use by more than 90 per cent in some industrial settings,” Professor Mikel Duke says.
