Our current dam capacity level of 78.97 percent may appear reasonable, however prolonged dry conditions means that storages are significantly lower than last August’s 91 per cent capacity.

A Hunter Water spokesperson said while the weather was uncontrollable, the community could still take steps to control water consumption.

“Demand is at a nine-year high for the month of August, with the region consuming on average 188 million litres of water each day,” the spokesperson said.

“If we all reduce the amount of water we use now, we will preserve our supplies and give ourselves the best chance of avoiding restrictions, which commence at 60 per cent total storage.”

Simple measures such as reducing time spent in the shower to four minutes, watering your garden before 10am and after 4pm to avoid the hottest part of the day and using a trigger nozzle on your hose can all make a difference.

“Hunter Water is also playing its part by doing four times the amount of active leak detection work across the network,” the spokesperson said. 

“We have found and fixed hundreds of leaks so far, resulting in leakage decreasing by more than 17 per cent over the past two years.

“We are using the forefront of technology to help us find leaks in our system that may otherwise go undetected.”

The Lower Hunter’s water supply is vulnerable to drought with dams filling quickly and emptying quickly.

Our water levels drop faster than most other major Australian urban centres during hot, dry periods because we have shallow water storages which results in high evaporation rates.

Hunter households use an average of about 10 per cent more water than the national average.