Water NSW has released its 20 year plan this week.

It outlines ways of saving water such as piping, channels and mid-river storage points.

The review tried to factor in “competing issues as irrigation demand, the needs of the environment and population growth, and then balancing that with less rainfall and higher temperatures”, said spokesperson for Water NSW, Tony Webber.

“We have been crunching the numbers and done the modelling to try and predict where the people will be living and what irrigation industries will look like in the next few decades.

“It is not just about building dams for dams’ sake. They are permanent structures that cost billions of dollars.”

The full study is accessible here.