A Conversation with Karlene Maywald Water Ambassador at the South Australian Government

By Karlene Maywald 23 June, 2023

Even with over a century's worth of climate data, the millennium drought showed it can get worse than the worst-case scenario. We chat to Maywald, Water Ambassador at the South Australian Govt about lessons learned & ways to prepare for the unpredictable

The millennium drought changed everything for South Australia, it showed you can’t rely on past data - even good data for more than 100 years - to predict the future anymore
Water is changing, making it a complex topic to think holistically; The debate has been on energy & mitigation, but we must now talk water since climate change = water change
We had to become very adaptative; spent AU$3bn+ in water infrastructure, set up insurance policies & review water security every 5 years, which the public is consulted on
Author: Karlene Maywald
Karlene Maywald is Managing Director of Maywald Consultants Pty Ltd, providing specialist advice to the private and public sector. Karlene's time as a Cabinet Minister with the SA Government has given her extensive experience in high level strategic planning, oversight of major infrastructure planning and delivery, reform of governance and organisational structures, budget oversight, change management, problem solving across a broad range of high risk sectors and driving the delivery of major policy reforms.
Read more from Karlene Maywald →

The content of this interview was extracted from one of the video interviews CWR’s Dawn McGregor conducted as part of Singapore International Water Week Spotlight 2023 Water Leaders Interview Series. The video interviews are not available yet but stay tuned for their release.

In this interview McGregor sat down with Karlene Maywald, the South Australian Water Ambassador of the Department if Environment & Water of the South Australian Government. Karlene explains how the South Australian Government, learning from the millennium droughts, strives to increase its water resilience and adaptability to the unpredictable effects of climate change through infrastructure investments and continuous reworking of its water security plans.

Remember to watch the full video interview to hear more from Karlene the importance & methods of community engagement in South Australia, its plan for managing water aid & its progress towards SDG6 by 2030.

CWR: Thanks so much for joining us today. Could you start us off with a little bit about yourself and your organisation?

Karlene Maywald (KM): My name is Karlene Maywald and my current role is the South Australian Water Ambassador. I work with the Department of Environment and Water in the South Australian government and my role is to support the government with advice regarding water policy but also to support South Australian businesses in their quest to bring new technologies to the marketplace in the water space.

CWR: Very interesting. Before we get into more of what keeps you busy, what does water mean to you?

KM: Water is everything. It’s the basis on which everything happens. If you look after water, you look after land and people. I think it’s the thing that sustains everything. I’ve been passionate about water for a long time.

“Water is everything. It’s the basis on which everything happens…

…If you look after water, you look after land & people”

I was first involved in water through politics as formally a member of parliament for a major irrigation district in South Australia. From there I was appointed as Water Security Minister in the South Australian government and that was during the millennium drought, so I learned an awful lot about the importance of water and particularly when you don’t have it. When you have the risk of a major city running out of water, it’s a great time to be a politician because it creates the opportunity for major water reforms. So, I learnt early on in my career just how important water is.

CWR: I think once anyone dips their toes in the water sector, in the water world, it becomes a passion. And everyone in the sector is so passionate about it.

KM: I think that’s one of the things that we do well as a sector. We’re very close it’s a very small world of the water sector and everyone that I meet comes across as incredibly passionate.

CWR: It’s also good now though that conversations are changing within the water sector but also more broadly. The media is changing, there’s more water news and a better understanding of its importance – like you said water is everything – the connection to land, food, health, and people. How would you like to see these conversations moving forward?

KM: It is changing but it’s a complex topic. So, it’s hard for communities and politicians to get their head around all the components that make up water.

Water is a changing & complex topic…

…& its difficult to think about it holistically

There’s water for drinking purposes, water for sanitation and sewage, water for the environment, water for agriculture, water for mining, water for industry, and each of them have a different lens. So, it creates enormous complexity and it’s difficult for decision makers to think about it holistically because of those various complexities.

CWR: Yes, totally agree. Speaking about challenges, you mentioned in a previous interview a piece of advice you would tell your past self is, “never allow a bad experience to cloud your judgment and always find the strength to be decisive”. Do you feel that’s still relevant for now? And have you been able to live by it? How has that impacted what you’ve done since then, and how do you see that relating to Australia’s water today?

KM: It’s a very good question and I think it’s relevant today if not more relevant today as we’re facing climate change and the need to bring water into that debate.

The debate has been about energy & mitigation…

…it’s time to crank up the convo about water because climate change = water change

The climate change debate largely has been around energy and mitigation of climate change. It’s now time to crank up the conversation about water because climate change is water change and if we’re not concentrating on water and making those decisive actions that we need to do for the future and being brave and courageous in doing that, then we’re not going to be doing our future generations nor this generation any justice.

CWR: I love it, crank up the conversation that climate change is water change. Indeed, for a long time carbon has been the main topic in the climate conversation and it’s to our detriment that water hasn’t been more on that agenda. Australia has experienced a lot of climate impacts – extreme droughts and earlier in the year heavy torrential rain in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland that actually led to widespread flooding in the Murray and Darling River systems. So, how do you look at balancing and how is the government or the advice you give them looking at balancing these extremes?

KM: In South Australia we’ve had a very strong approach to water security since the millennium drought. The millennium drought changed everything for South Australia, and we had good data – over 100 years of data, in the Murray darling basin.

The millennium drought changed everything for South Australia…

…when making decisions in that context, you can’t rely on past data to predict the future anymore

We had good planning and modeling that demonstrated to us the scenarios that we could be planning for, and we planned for those scenarios. But what the millennium drought taught us is there can always be worse than the worst case and we were facing 50% less inflows into the system than our worst-case scenario planning told us – from 117 years of data.

So, when you try to make decisions in that context, you can’t rely on the data from the past to predict the future anymore. You can’t tell when a drought is going to end. With a flood you can do the modeling, you can see where the water is moving, and you know when the flood is going to pass through.

But with a drought, it’s very different and our experience with the millennium drought was that it just kept going and going and deepening and deepening.

We had to become very adaptative…

…we spent AU$3bn+ in water infrastructure, set up insurance policies & review water security every 5 yrs

We had to become very adaptive and create a whole range of alternative options including desalination, wastewater reuse for parks, gardens fruit and vegetables, irrigation for wine grapes, those sorts of things and for Parklands.

At that time, we spent over 3 billion dollars in water infrastructure just in one state in Australia and that has set us up to have a range of insurance policies against future variabilities.

But we still need to do more, we’re not finished yet. We recently introduced legislation or 10 years ago now, in 2012 was to bring our regulatory and legislative framework into a progressive state where we look at our water security every five years and we measure it against what we modeled would happen. It creates the opportunity for adaptability.

CWR: It’s a good mindset to have. Especially with climate change and us passing tipping points, creating a lot of uncertainty. Much planning unfortunately is still being done in the old way. It’s almost setting us up to some degree for failure, right? We’re not giving ourselves a chance to build that adaptability.

KM: Adaptability comes from doing as best as you can with the modeling based on the previous data. But then tracking against that monitoring measuring assessing and analyzing very carefully.

Adaptability is doing your best with previous data, carefully tracking, measuring, assessing, & analyzing the results

We do every five years of water security statement in South Australia now which looks at what we thought the time when we first introduced the act, what it looks like now, and what we can expect in the future now knowing what we know in those 5 years. It’s consulted broadly through the public, it’s available on the website, the feedback that we get from the public is incorporated and that feedback is also all on the website and available to the public. Also, how it’s been incorporated into revised statement is also on the website as well.

This is where the teaser interview ends but there is plenty more interesting discussion. So, remember to watch the full video interview to hear more from Karlene about importance of community engagement in South Australia, its plans for water aid & its progress towards SDG6 by 2030 plus more!

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