Watch our educational videos
Managing water quality
At the heart of Greater Sydney’s drinking water catchment are 3700 square kilometres of highly protected lands known as Special Areas. Meet some of the people working hard to look after these buffer areas, managing the range of issues that can impact water quality.
Sixty-five year old Geoff Buttonshaw says it’s never too late to learn more about land management. Since selling up his 6500 acre mixed farming property in the Central West, Geoff moved to the Southern Highlands to take up his new role as a farm manager on five local properties. He says he needed to improve his knowledge about farming in a different locality, so undertook a number of courses and is now working on riparian protection and pasture improvement projects on his clients’ properties.
Managing water supply
Holding over four times the capacity of Sydney Harbour, Lake Burragorang is the source of almost 70% of Sydney’s drinking water. This film takes viewers below its surface to learn about the seasonal changes that take place within the layers of the lake. Follow how Sydney Catchment Authority scientists monitor these changes to ensure Warragamba Dam operators can select the best quality water to send to Sydney.
Managing Warragamba Dam
The “quiet beast” is the 142 metre high Warragamba Dam constructed from three million tonnes of concrete – Australia’s largest domestic water supply dam. Remarkably this massive structure actually can move a few millimetres over the course of a year and it’s the job of the Sydney Catchment Authority’s surveyors and dam safety experts to monitor these changes to ensure it continues to operate safely.
Generations of Sydneysiders owe their thanks to the 2000 workers who worked round-the-clock shifts to build Warragamba Dam between 1948 and 1960. This is their story told by the men and women who lived and worked at Warragamba.