The increased water usage will hit householders – trying to keep cool and ensure their gardens survive – in the hip-pocket and boost State Government coffers by more than $5 million.
And there is no relief in sight as the state braces for another scorching week, with the mercury forecast to rise each day from 35C on Monday up to a blistering 42C on Thursday.
Adelaide has not had any rainfall at its official West Tce station since December 19, when 6mm was recorded.
Bureau of Meteorology duty forecaster Ben Owen said the last time the West Tce station did not record any January rainfall was in 1957.
The state’s water consumption between December 1 and January 18 this year was 26,581ML, compared with a 10-year average of 24,560ML.
The extra water usage so far this summer would fill more than 575 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
SA Water would receive a revenue bonus of $5.26 million from additional water use so far this summer, based on the highest price paid by householders of $3.65.
The spokeswoman said there were no plans to significantly increase capacity or production at any of SA Water’s desalination plants.
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Shopian, Jan 19: Residents of several areas in Shopian town have a general complaint that owing to freezing temperatures, the water in the water supply pipes has frozen due to which they are facing acute water shortage from last 3 days.
Residents here said that they are using heat for thawing the frozen water in the pipes.
“This technique is proving very hectic to us.
We demand the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department to come up with some alternatives so that to ensure uninterrupted water supply to our areas,” they added.
They further said, the problem is being witnessed in areas like Taing mohalla, Baba mohalla, Chowgam, Gagren Memendhr Bongam, Hergam.
When contacted Executive Engineer PHE Shopian, Nissar Ahmad Shah, said: “We have set up control rooms for the public and the residents of the Shopian town who are facing any issues with water supply should our contact control room for getting their issued resolved.”

Dharmagarh/Koksara:Sufficient water is said to be unavailable for farmlands at the tail end of Indravati multi-purpose project in Koksara and Dharmgarh blocks in Kalahandi district.
This and other issues like choked canals and botched up restoration work came up for discussion during observation of pani panchayats fortnight in which farmers, engineers and staff of lift and minor irrigation departments and various pani panchayats participated.
Similarly, farmers affiliated to various pani panchayats in Koksara alleged that due to lack of canal repairs, their farmlands have been deprived of water from the Indravati left canal.
“Canal restoration work is not carried out properly and some work has been halted while some canals were choked with silt.
They need to be dredged out.
Due to choked canals, water does not reach the tail end areas.
The farmers at the end of the canal system have to suffer for lack of water,” the farmers said.
They also said that some projects have been executed by pani panchayats, but pani panchayat committees have not been provided utilisation certificates (UCs) by the authorities concerned.
Members of many pani panchayats demanded that all works should be executed under pani panchayats in the larger interests of the farm sector in the area.
The government will be apprised of the issues and demands of pani panchayats, he added.

Not only in the winters, the area often witnesses water crises even in spring and summer.
“We face immense problems in terms of potable water.
On the one hand, we men folk leave our homes to earn for two times of meals for our families; on the other side, as soon as we leave, our women start fetching water from a faraway canal that contains contaminated water, which results in the outbreak of diseases,” said Sartaj Ahmad, a labourer from the village demanding sanction of a water supply scheme.
Inhabitants from the area told Kashmir Reader that most of the people living in the area are economically backward and there is no influential political leader or bureaucrat to address their problem.
“Our repeated demonstrations and requests to the higher authorities for the redressal of our problem has turned into a nightmare for us; we are fed up now with the repeated visits to the district-level officials,” said local resident Javeed Ahmad Tantray.
Locals said that as many as half-a-dozen localities, including Chotipora, Saidpora and many tribal areas, are dependent on this water supply scheme.
“In this harsh and freezing winter, we suffer the worst.
Our feet and hands are numbed while walking the mountain pass to fetch drinking water,” Jabeena Akhter, a housewife from Saidpora, said while pleading to the authorities to solve their decades-long problem.
Numberdar, Saidpora village, Ghulam Mohiudin Kutay told Kashmir Reader that there is no door of the district administration on which they haven’t knocked for the solution of their problem, but they return heartbroken every time as the officials turn a deaf ear to their grievances.
On the sanctioning of water supply scheme, including a reservoir and filtration plant, he said, “I will put in a proposal and will write to the higher authorities for approval of funds.” Shah added that till alternatives are made available, he has directed the officials not to let PMGSY resume work on lanes that had damaged the pipelines.

He has a few spots in mind but needs to gather more information before embarking on the weeks-long journey.
In the Sahel, climate change has translated into more frequent, longer drought spells that threaten the resilience capacity of nomadic livestock pastoralists like Adoum.
Freshwater points are scarce during the dry season and many animals are at risk of dying before reaching the next oasis.
When droughts occur, herders can cover several hundred to thousands of kilometres before finding an adequate water spot with enough water and vegetation to meet the needs of the many herds gathering there.
He is also a founding member of the African Network of Pastoralists, Bilital Maroobé.
Thanks to mobile phones, this information is literally at their fingertips.
Adoum is one of 21,000 pastoralists who use the Garbal mobile phone service to find where the best conditions are to move their herd.
The Sustainable Technology Adaptation for Mali’s Pastoralistsproject isn’t your typical public-private partnership.
The Netherlands, via Hoefsloot Spatial Solutions, provides the satellite imagery, Orange Mali operates the call centre and TASSAGHT, with its team of local pastoralists, collects and sends up-to-date information to complement the data coming from space.
“The first phase of the project closed in December 2018, but given its success, we are now looking to expand the service to other regions in Mali and beyond, and add services of relevance to pastoralists such as animal health counselling and digital financial products.” “Water scarcity is one of the most pressing challenges we are facing today, and ensuring access to abundant, safe, clean water sources is a great challenge, particularly in arid and semi-arid environments,” says Lis Mullin Bernhardt, freshwater expert at UN Environment.

But there’s one problem: desalination produces a typically hypersaline concentrate discharge called “brine” that requires disposal, which is both costly and has associated negative environmental impacts.
In 2000, the volumes of desalinated water produced by thermal technologies and RO were approximately equal at 11.6 million m3/day and 11.4 m3/day respectively, together accounting for 93% of the total volume of desalinated water produced.
The current production of desalinated water from RO now stands at 65.5 million m3/day, accounting for 69% of the volume of desalinated water produced.
Almost half of the global desalination capacity is located in the Middle East and North Africa region (48%), with Saudi Arabia (15.5%), the United Arab Emirates (10.1%), and Kuwait (3.7%) being the major producers in both the region and globally.
Realizing the vast potential of desalinated water remains a challenge due to specific barriers, predominantly associated with the relatively high economic costs and a variety of environmental concerns, such as brine byproducts.
Global brine production is concentrated in the Middle East and North Africa, which produces almost 100 million m3/day of brine, accounting for 70.3% of global brine production.
As with desalinated water production, high income countries produce the vast majority of global brine (77.9%).
The study also notes economic opportunities to use brine in aquaculture, such as to irrigate salt tolerant species, to generate electricity, and to recover the salt and metals contained in brine, including magnesium, gypsum, sodium chloride, calcium, potassium, chlorine, bromine, and lithium.
Substantial efforts, innovation and research are required to both (a) reduce the volume of brine being produced (i.e. increase the efficiency of the desalination process) and (b) to treat and/or use the brine that is produced in an economically viable and environmentally friendly way.
Metal and salt recovery from brine is an option, although high economic costs and energy demands remains a significant barrier to more widespread application.

The week-long exhibition features items by international designers, as well as artists from the wider Mediterranean region, related to the different uses of water The Italian Embassy in Riyadh, in cooperation with Prince Sultan University, will next week host an exhibition about water scarcity and the sustainable use of water.
The week-long exhibition features items by international designers, as well as artists from the wider Mediterranean region, related to the different uses of water.
“It aims to address the issue of water scarcity and the sustainable use of water, both themes being of particular relevance nowadays,” an embassy statement said Tuesday.
Entry to the exhibition will be open to the public on a daily basis until Jan. 31.
Admission is free but prior online registration is required at the following website: https://bit.ly/2D5ooLi.
These ornate objects were used to filter water, keep it cool, and prevent insects from falling in.
They were a reminder of the importance of saving water, the statement said.
The embassy added that the exhibition was an example of the thriving cultural partnership between Italy and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia ranks among the top five countries in the world in terms of water scarcity, leading the Kingdom to change the way it produces, uses and distributes water to ensure sustainable growth.
About 50 percent of the country’s drinking water comes from desalination, 40 percent from the mining of non-renewable groundwater, and 10 percent from surface water in the mountainous regions, particularly the southwest.

Indeed, the Ancient Mariner’s lament about his raging thirst amid an abundance of undrinkable seawater could gradually become a thing of the past as improvements to desalination technology enable the large-scale removal of salts and minerals from the ocean But, there is a hitch: How to turn this abundant resource into drinking water without harming life in the sea and adjoining coastal environment because of the growing torrent of brine water and chemical pollution from nearly 16,000 desalination plants scattered around the globe.
A study published on 14 January by United Nations’ water researchers says there has been an “exponential increase” in global desalination capacity compared to 20 years ago — and a concomitant increase in the flow of polluted, hyper-salty brine water into the ocean.
While the biggest plants are located in the Middle East, North Africa, Spain and small island nations, the study estimates that there are now 15,906 desalination plants operating in 177 countries (with more than 300 in Sub-Saharan Africa).
And while removing salt from seawater remains a costly option compared with more conventional sources such as damming up rivers, the authors say desalination has vast potential if the power-generation costs and growing environmental concerns can be addressed.
The effluent can also contain toxic chemicals from antiscalants and antifoulants that are used in the desalination and filtration process (including copper and chlorine).
“Since seawater reverse osmosis effluents are growing in volume, our lack of full understanding of their long-term impacts demands more, not less, caution,” according to researchers Dr Nurit Kress and Bella Galil.
They point instead to an increasing body of research and case studies in the Middle East, Australia and California showing that brine effluents impact marine life in the vicinity of outfall pipes, including seagrasses and corals that serve as a nursery area for fish.
While Israeli legislation requires an EIA as part of the planning of a desalination plant, Kress says the true structure of some chemical treatments are not disclosed and no effluent toxicity tests are required.
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Through initiatives such as the Jalyukt Shivar water conservation scheme, the BJP-led Maharashtra government has made 16,000 villages free of water scarcity, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said Wednesday.
He was speaking at an international conference on micro-irrigation here.
"Water is very precious and we still have not realised it….we don’t get regular rainfall and micro-irrigation is the only solution.
Earlier, two countries would fight over water.
Now such crises erupt between districts and even tehsils," said Fadnavis.
"The government is working hard on the Jalyukt Shivar initiative and has made 16,000 villages water-neutral (free of water scarcity).
Thirty-four lakh hectares of land is (has been brought) under irrigation.
Micro-irrigation facilities have increased three times," the chief minister claimed.
While the BJP-led state government has put a lot of stress on village-level water conservation projects, the state faced a poor monsoon in 2018, forcing it to declare drought in 151 tehsils in 26 out of the total 36 districts.
(With inputs from agencies.)

Worldwide, approximately 16,000 desalination plants transform inedible salt water into drinking water.
Significantly more problematic residues, however, as adopted, is reported by an international team of researchers in the journal “Science of the Total Environment”.
“About 1.5 to 2 billion people live in areas with a shortage of water, in which at least Parts of the year, the available resources are not sufficient to cover the demand,” says Vladmir Smakhtin, one of the scientists involved.
In addition, the researchers tested how much drinking water these systems produce and what quantities of residues which are thereby incurred.
It also contains chemicals and dissolved metals.
What happens to this salt solution, depends on, among other things, the location of the desalination plant.
This can cause damage to the relevant Ecosystems significantly, the researchers write.
The Brine-inflow of lowering the oxygen and reduces the proportion of dissolved oxygen in the waters, explained the scientists involved in Edward Jones.
“A high salt content and decreased Dissolved oxygen content can have a significant impact on the living creatures in the waters; the resulting ecological effects on the entire food chain.” In this case, the waste product also provides economic opportunities, stress the researchers.
“This is especially important in countries with a large amount of Brine to produce with relatively little efficiency, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.” another disadvantage of the currently operated desalination plants: they are considered to be very energy-intensive.