Joe Flynn, head of the Water Industry Alliance, discusses how a decade--long drought has led to innovation in water technology. CLICK HERE for the video.

If droughts help water-related businesses grow, the Water Industry Alliance of Australia picked a good spot to open its office. 

Rain has been scarce in the alliance’s home city of Adelaide in the state of South Australia, and the result has been a deluge of innovation that has led to new technologies and $2 billion in exports over the past eight years.

A group of eight companies visited Atlanta in June to share some of its products as part of a trade mission led by the Australian Trade Commission, or Austrade. 

Georgia’s current water crisis might seem mild compared to the 10-year dry spell in South Australia, which delegate Joe Flynn told GlobalAtlanta is the “driest state in the world’s driest inhabited continent.”

But Mr. Flynn, head of the Water Industry Alliance, believes that the droughts in both places provide a common platform for sharing products and expertise that will help both states use their water resources more efficiently. 

With a growing state population and a drought that has caused Lake Lanier (metro Atlanta’s main reservoir) to recede to historic lows, Georgia’s Legislature hasn’t been shy in making conservation a top priority.

In the winter, outdoor watering restrictions threatened to leave swimming pools unfilled during the hot summer.  Gov. Sonny Perdue relaxed those restrictions Feb. 7, to the elation of swimmers and sunbathers across the state. 

A month before that, both houses of the General Assembly passed a little-contested statewide water plan recommended by the Georgia Water Council.   The council was created by the Comprehensive Statewide Water Management Planning Act in 2004.

The plan will split the state into 11 districts and call for $36 million over the next three years to evaluate the state’s current water supply and decide how much will be needed for future growth.

Last week, Georgia’s top environmental official told the Associated Press that Alabama, Georgia and Florida and should split the cost of a study that would determine how to best utilize in the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin, water from which is shared among the states. 

The states have been battling over water resources for 30 years and are awaiting Congressional approval and funding for the $1 million study proposed by two Florida senators, the AP reported.

Mr. Flynn said that such federal and state government regulation of the water industry in Australia has led to boosts in productivity.  Instead of treating it as an entitlement, the government has allowed water’s price to reflect its scarcity and value.

But more important in coping with the drought has been the private sector’s creative and entrepreneurial response, especially in agriculture, he said.

“There has been this astounding growth in what I call backyard, down-to-earth innovators,” he said.

Some companies have created precision irrigation products that measure the moisture of the soil and distribute only the water needed to maintain proper levels.  

With these systems in place, over-watering is no longer an issue.  With sprinkler systems, crops were sometimes getting 60 times more water than they needed, damaging roots.

In some cases, crop yields have increased even in the absence of adequate rainfall. 

Farmers have also begun to use what’s called “aquifer storage recharge,” in which a system of gutters transfers rainwater to wetlands where it’s naturally purified and then pumped into backup aquifers for later use, he said.

One company that visited Georgia, Melbourne, Australia-based Ultimate Agri Products, has a product called “aquatain,” a liquid silicone film that coats water molecules and reduces evaporation by up to 50 percent.

Mr. Flynn isn’t the first water expert to share his expertise in Georgia.  Oded Distel, director of Israel NEWTech, the Israeli government’s water investment promotion agency, paid a visit to Atlanta in February.

Like the Australian group, he pitched his country’s competitive advantages in water technologies.  Read about Mr. Distel’s visit…