Australians use less water but supplies 'still scarce'

New figures have shown that those living in the Melbourne area consumed less water in 2008 than they did the year previously, but supplies are still low.

The country's water minister Tim Holding announced the statistics, pointing out that water consumption levels were last year on a par with those of the 1930s.

Overall, 500 fewer litres of water were used by Melburnians in 2008 than 2007.

Mr Holding commented: "With a growing population, we had - from a consumption perspective - a pretty good year."

However, the area still consumed 80 billion litres more than it could afford to last year, it was added.

Another city experiencing water shortages is the Chinese capital Beijing, which began to pump reserves from the neighbouring Heibei province in September in order to deal with the deficit.