While Sydney's overall water usage has increased by 1.4 per cent year on year - using 597 gigalitres in 2018, compared to 579.1 in 2017 - the average per person per day residential use has actually dropped from approximately 260 litres in 1991, to 200 litres in 2018. Professor Stuart White, director of the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, says larger houses on smaller lots, more water efficient appliances and infrastructure, and behavioural changes have reduced water usage over the last few decades. O'Mara and her husband collect water from hand washing in the laundry to put on the plants. Credit:Nick Moir "All those changes mean that the demand per person on the total water use from the dams and system is less," he says. Tanner Kirschner, 14, says her parents have inspired her to be more water efficient around their house in Pleasure Point, in Sydney's south-west.

"While we're waiting for the water to warm up in the shower we put the bucket underneath the taps to catch all the excess water, and we'll just use that to put on the garden and water the plants," she says. Tanner says she also empties her water bottle over the garden of native, water-efficient plants rather than tipping it down the sink when she gets home from school or sport. "I think it’s important because not only does saving water save money, but it's because water is a natural resource, and any natural resource needs to be taken care of and not just wasted," she says. White says a big part of the reduction in per capita water usage is due to the work of Sydney Water, and the "hundreds of millions of dollars" spent on water saving projects after it was incorporated in the 1990s with a target to greatly reduce water demand. "That means leakage detection and repair over 20,000 kilometres of mains; it means that a fifth to a quarter of Sydney households got a retrofit with showers and taps; there was a huge industrial program for the largest water users; there were programs through schools," he said.

He says the program meant that when the Millennium drought hit during the early 2000s, Sydney was not as badly affected as places like south-east Queensland and Melbourne. O’Mara says she monitors the weather to help decide when to use tank water to water the vegetable garden. Credit:Nick Moir O'Mara says she remembers her family going to extreme measures to save water during that drought period. "The plug went into the bath when you had a shower, and we bucketed that out into the garden," the part-time high school drama teacher says. While she and her husband Pat no longer do that, she says they closely monitor the weather to help decide when to use their tank water or when they can wait for rain to water their large vegetable garden.

White says an increased uptake in appliances like front-loading washing machines - which use as much as 50 per cent less water than top loaders - helps with water efficiency, but more can be done. "If we enter restrictions now, it's likely we won't get quite the same percentage reduction we had during the last Millennium drought," he says. And with the Sydney Desalination Plant in Kurnell being restarted, Professor White says now is the perfect time for the government to increase water efficiency programs. "As soon as the desal plant goes on, there will be another 50 to 80 cents per cubic metre cost, that makes water efficiency programs even more cost effective than they already were," he says. Catherine Port, the executive drought lead at Sydney Water, says individuals could easily reduce their water consumption by taking shorter showers and only watering their gardens before 10am and after 4pm.