Catching the cleanest water
The following is reprinted from a special feature commissioned by the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) for CSIRO's Double Helix Science Club appearing in Issue #74 (Oct/Nov 2000) of HELIX Magazine. For more information, please visit the web site at: http://www.csiro.au/helix/
Two thirds of the planet is water, but about 97 percent of it is salty. Almost all the rest is locked up in polar ice caps, clouds or soil. That means less than one hundredth of the world's water is available to use! To make matters worse, Australia is the driest inhabited continent. Our variable climate makes water a more valuable resource than in other countries. It's especially hard to collect water in our most densely populated city: Sydney.
