Anglian Water: Lessons from Australia

Strategy & Policy Analyst Alice Piure was awarded a Travel Fellowship from the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust (WCMT), to travel to Australia to see for herself how the country manages its water supplies.

Her report is the latest addition to the debate concerning water abstraction reform in England and Wales. It concentrates on the Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s most important area for irrigated agriculture, examining, in particular, the effects of the ‘Millennium Drought’ of 1997-2010.

Whilst the report acknowledges the obvious differences in areas such as climate and the way water is managed generally, it considers the lessons that can be learnt by England and Wales and provides recommendations for reform.

Fine Design were commissioned to design and print the final document, which is in full colour and runs to sixty-six pages. The cover design takes Australian Aboriginal dot painting for inspiration and features a platypus in shades of pale oranges and reds, on a watery pattern of blues and greens. The water pattern is used throughout the report, as is the cover design’s colour palette, giving a consistent, unified feel to the presentation. Working to a tight deadline, the team was able to design the document, produce artwork and print in the space of just ten days.

Anglian Water distributed two hundred copies to water industry experts at a dissemination event in London. The report has made an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the future of water management in this country.