Water Security Plan

The South-Central Water Grid, which includes the Victorian Desalination Plant, services over 80% of Victoria’s population across Melbourne, Geelong and connected towns.

The Victorian Desalination Plant will continue to support the South-Central Water Grid with a secure source of water that does not rely on rain. Protecting Melbourne’s storages during dry periods and times of drought, while helping them recover when wet conditions return.

However, demand for water in this region is set to increase rapidly over the next decade as new homes are built and the population grows. At the same time the climate is expected to get drier.

By 2030 the South-Central Water Grid will need to provide up to an additional 95 billion litres of water, over and above what the existing Victorian Desalination Plant is able to deliver.

In response to this, the Victorian Government, in collaboration with urban water corporations, has developed the Water Security Plan for Melbourne, Geelong and connected towns.

The Water Security Plan

The Water Security Plan explores the best mix of options to increase the capacity of the South-Central Water Grid including:

• water efficiency initiatives
• integrated water management
• replenishing water sources with purified recycled water and stormwater
• expanding desalination water capacity, to meet the forecast gap between supply and demand.

The plan will progress detailed investigations into options to sustainably grow our water supplies and build our resilience to drought and other disruptions.

The plan highlights near-term options that can be implemented within the next 10 years, and longer-term options which may take 20 years or more to investigate and implement.

Future decisions to implement options will make use of the best available data such as storage levels, population growth, water use and climate trends over time. This reduces the risk of investing too early and increasing costs unnecessarily, or too late, which can lead to extended periods of severe water restrictions.

Ensuring water security for regional Victoria through other strategies and investments

The area covered by the Water Security Plan includes seven urban water corporations, including the three in metropolitan Melbourne (South East Water, Yarra Valley Water and Greater Western Water), as well as Gippsland Water, South Gippsland Water, Westernport Water and Barwon Water. This South-Central Water Grid services 80% of Victoria’s population.

Given the importance and interconnectedness of the South-Central Water Grid, it is prudent to have a plan in place for future water supplies for the area, in addition to the planning that takes place at the local water corporation level via Urban Water Strategies.

Over time, more townships may be connected to the South-Central Water Grid, but it will never encompass the entire state.

For the remainder of Victoria, there is a rigorous planning framework in place to assess water security, and identify actions to improve it, often with support from Victorian and Federal Governments.

All Victorian urban water corporations have their own Urban Water Strategies, last updated in 2022, which include actions to address future urban water security.

Augmentation map dashboard

Explore the different pressures and augmentation plans around Victoria from each water corporation’s urban water strategy on the Urban Water: Potential Augmentations map dashboard.

Page last updated: 25/09/25