Sydney authorities are pushing through plans for the country’s first city-wide recycled water network that aims to address drinking water demand.

The consortium comprises engineering consultants GHD, the Institute of Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology, Sydney and Public Private Partnership Consultants P3iC.It will develop different business models to implement the decentralized water plan including a private sector water services company or a public/private joint venture.

The city currently imports 32 gigalitres of drinking-quality water annually, the equivalent of 12,800 Olympic pools, mainly from Warragamba Dam. An estimated 80 percent could be supplemented by recycled water including toilet flushing, laundry, air conditioning cooling towers and irrigation.

The recycled water network would connect to apartment, commercial and institutional buildings which are responsible for 80 per cent of the water consumption in the LGA. In an Australian first it would allow buildings to take recycled water from the network and to supply any excess recycled water to the network.

"Despite the unusually wet year we have just had, in the longer term our drinking water supplies will come under increasing pressure from a growing population and climate change with hotter and dryer weather predicted over the coming decades," said Lord Mayor Clover Moore MP. "The recycled water network is part of a long term strategy to make better use of our water resources and will provide a model for other Australian cities".

The water master plan would also outline water efficiency measures to reduce consumption and methods to collect more water locally, such as stormwater harvesting.