‘525 Olympic pools in one night’: Adelaide guzzles through record water levels
SA Water says Adelaide hit its highest level of water consumption in 20 years over summer – the city guzzling through vast amounts of water in just one night.
SA Water has recorded the highest level of water consumption in Adelaide for 20 years over summer – in one night alone the city tapped about 525 Olympic-size swimming pools of water.
The rising water levels are being blamed on climate change and the state’s growing population with temperatures also rising.
SA Water data showed 58.2 billion litres of water was supplied by its water treatment facilities to Adelaide customers over summer – the highest volume since 2003-2004.
Figures narrowly eclipsed the city’s water use during summer 2024-2025 – and the statewide total of 89.8 billion litres of water this summer is now the second highest since the Millennium.
SA Water’s senior manager of water futures and security Dr Ashley Kingsborough said the state’s changing climate and population growth was pushing bulk water use back up to levels experienced prior to the Millennium Drought.
“While water users in South Australia are far savvier and individual households are still using less water on average, we are now seeing our total water consumption shift towards where it was during the early 2000s,” Kingsborough said.
“The dual impact of our changing climate and growing population is pushing overall water use higher, and this has certainly been evident across the past two summers through record levels of water consumption.
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“Water use during summer 2024-25 and 2025-26 was approximately 21 per cent more than the previous 10- year summer average.”
The utility logged one of the highest volumes of water use for a single day on record this summer.
A total of 1.31 billion litres of water was supplied to SA Water customers to keep up with demand during the 24 hours to 8am on 27 January, it coincided with the warmest night ever recorded for Adelaide with a minimum temperature of 34.2°C.
This equates to about 525 Olympic-size swimming pools of water.
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