Canberra's water is getting cleaner, becoming more plentiful and most of what we use of it returns to the environment, an Australian Bureau of Statistics report shows.
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The ABS, in partnership with the Bureau of Meteorology, reviewed the Canberra region's water resources between the 2013-14 and 2016-17 financial years.
The report, released on Tuesday, showed Canberra's total water resources increased by 27 per cent, from 220,546 megalitres to 279,968 megalitres, over that period.
The region the bureaus audited stretched from the ACT's western and northern borders to east past Queanbeyan to Captain's Flat in NSW, and as far south as the territory's southern border.
Most notably, about 80 per cent of the roughly 50,000 megalitres of water the Canberra region used each year was returned to the environment.
Households and industry in the region used an average of 49,958 megalitres each year but returned 41,050 megalitres as treated wastewater to the Molonglo River.
ABS environmental centre assistant director Steven May said this was thanks to the region's smaller agriculture sector.
"We're only taking a relatively small amount of that for use by households and industry," Mr May said.
The region's households spent $124 million on water in 2016-17, while industry including farming only spent $52 million on potable water.
But Mr May said Canberrans spent more on water than the average Australian.
Spending per kilolitre per household was $3.77, compared to the national average of $3.28.
The increase of water reserves over the surveyed period coincided with the Cotter Dam expansion going online in 2013, which increased Canberra's water storage capacity by 35 per cent.
But in the 18 months since the report, Canberra's water storage had dropped, Mr May said.
Icon Water's website shows Canberra's dam levels are currently about 62 per cent.
The report showed water quality in some areas had also improved over the four years, with the Cotter River one of the cleanest in the region.
"There's no human intervention up in that catchment at all," Mr May said.
"There's no agriculture, there's no industry, there's no human dirtying."
Water quality in Lake Burley Griffin declined over the three-year period monitored by the bureaus, whilst water quality in the Molonglo River - which feeds the lake - improved.
Canberra's main source of water was surface water, stored in massive reservoirs across the region including Cotter and Googong.
But the Cotter reservoir to the capital's west remained Canberra's prime source of drinking water.
