Improving Health through Good Quality Drinking Water

On 29th September 2023, the Water Justice Hub hosted “Drinking Water Quality in Rural and Remote Communities in Australia”. The event showcased a new 5-year project entitled ‘Improving Remote Indigenous Community Health through Good Quality Drinking Water’ supported by funding from a legacy through Equity Trustees.

The event began with a Welcome to Country by Dr. Aunty Matilda House. Following the Welcome to Country, the formal launch of the new project was led by Professor Quentin Grafton, the Water Justice Hub Convenor. He presented an overview of the project, outlining its primary objectives.

Overarching Goal: The primary objective is to improve public health outcomes in Australia’s remote Indigenous communities.

Method: This will be achieved by creating a National Drinking Water Quality Database to assess causality and to highlight priorities for funding for remote communities.

Community Engagement: Partnering with select communities to develop community-led initiatives to improve drinking water quality including water quality monitoring + measurement of costs of poor drinking water quality.

Water the event video.

Read more about the database preliminary research:

Wyrwoll, PR, Manero, A, Taylor, KS, Rose, E & Quentin Grafton, R 2022, ‘Measuring the gaps in drinking water quality and policy across regional and remote Australia’, npj Clean Water, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 1–14.