Australia's water sector holds world-class technical knowledge and asset management practices.
For example, SA Water, the major metropolitan utility in South Australia, has converted its supply network into a smart network. This identifies immediate issues in a particular area so that communities of similar geography (size, scale and demography) can be assisted proactively, making the utility's investments more efficient.39
Unfortunately, access to this kind of knowledge is uneven. Physical and Jurisdictional boundaries often prevent innovation or sharing of best-practice approaches.
Through industry bodies, water directorates and Joint organisations of councils, local governments have strengthened their collaboration and business continuity.40 However, larger metropolitan water utilities that have the scale to trial innovative approaches to address shared challenges are not included in these forums.
Ensuring knowledge and resources are shared by the whole sector is key to managing ageing assets and meeting future expectations.
One way to promote knowledge exchange across the sector would be to establish a national asset management group that connects regional alliances and larger water utilities, so that communities of similar geography can share asset management expertise and resources (see Figure 6.3).